Jung, Carl

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Jung, Carl 1875-1961

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND AND ITS CONTENTS

THE NATURE OF MENTAL HEATH AND ANALYTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY

Carl Gustav Jung was born in Kesswyl, Switzerland, on July 26, 1875. Jung was a self-described lonely and isolated son of an emotionally troubled mother and a poor but extremely well-read country pastor. A gifted student, Jung originally wanted to be an archaeologist. Due to limited financial resources, Jung was forced to attend the University of Basel, which did not offer courses in archaeology, and he studied medicine with the intention of becoming a surgeon. Jung switched to psychiatry to pursue his interests in dreams, fantasies, the occult, theology, and archaeology. Upon graduation Jung received an appointment to the Burgholzli Mental Hospital in Zurich where, from 1900 to 1909, he studied the nature of schizophrenia and developed into a world authority on abnormal behavior.

Jung was an early supporter of the psychotherapist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) because of their shared interest in the unconscious. When the International Psychoanalytic Association was formed in 1910, Jung became its first president at the request of Freud. However, growing theoretical differences between them, especially over the importance of libido (i.e., sexual energy) and the nature of the unconscious resulted in Jung’s resignation from the group only four years later. The two men never met or spoke to each other again.

From 1913 to 1917, while Jung was experiencing serious emotional difficulties in his life and even contemplating suicide, he engaged in an extensive self-analysis. The outcome of his self-analysis produced some of Jung’s most original theoretical concepts, which he continued to develop over the next sixty years as Jung established himself as one of the most noted psychological and eclectic thinkers of the twentieth century. For example, Jung was extremely well read in theology, anthropology, archaeology, psychology, ancient texts, the occult, mythology, and psychiatry. He studied psychological adjustment in selected groups of individuals around the world (e.g., Navajo Indians, native tribes in Africa); and participated in archaeological and anthropological expeditions in a variety of cultures (e.g., Egypt, Sudan, India), while incorporating his diverse knowledge and experience into his theory of personality and psychotherapeutic applications in an attempt to verify his ideas. Jung died on June 6, 1961, in Zurich at the age of 85. He was an active and productive researcher and writer his entire life, with a collection of works totaling twenty volumes.

FREUDIAN VERSUS JUNGIAN TRADITIONS

Although initially a strong supporter of Freud and his ideas, Jung’s eventual disagreement with some of the cornerstones of Freud’s theory resulted in the termination of their professional relationship and personal friendship. A principal source of disagreement was with Freud’s concept of libido. Freud’s conceptualized libido as primarily the source of sexual energy that served to created a state of emotional tension that the individual was driven to decrease, forming the basis of the two primary motivating sources of behavior—life instinct (i.e., creation of tension) and death instinct (i.e., the reduction of tension). In direct contrast, and much to Freud’s disagreement, Jung deemphasized the importance of the libido as a source of sexual energy. Jung described libido as a more generalized life energy source that served to motivate the individual to seek a sense of personal balance within the psyche in a number of different ways, including socially, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and creatively.

This point of disagreement regarding the nature and role of libido helped to create the distinction between the Freudian and Jungian traditions in psychology. The Freudian tradition is characterized by the presence of intrapsychic conflict and the creation and reduction of psychic tension. The Jungian tradition, referred to as “analytical psychology,” is characterized by the seeking of intrapsychic harmony and the balanced expression of the separate aspects of the self.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND AND ITS CONTENTS

Another significant source of disagreement between Freud and Jung was their contrasting views of the structure of the mind and the nature of unconsciousness. In comparison to Freud, Jung’s view of the structural nature of personality reflected a redefined and expanded view of the mind, especially the unconscious mind, which Jung believed to be much deeper and wider in the scope of its content than Freud. The “conscious ego” is the center of conscious awareness of the self. The major functions of the conscious ego are to make individuals aware of their internal processes (e.g., thoughts or feelings of pain) and the external world (e.g., surrounding noises) at a level of awareness necessary for daily functioning.

Directly next to the conscious ego and below conscious awareness, Jung proposed the “personal unconscious” region of the mind. The contents of the personal unconscious include all thoughts, memories, and experiences that are momentarily not being thought about and/or repressed because they are too emotionally threatening. The most important elements in the personal unconscious are what Jung described as “complexes.” A complex is a collection of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and memories that center around a particular concept. The more elements attached to the complex, the greater its influence on the individual. If the complex becomes too strong it can become pathological, serving to create a sense of imbalance in the individual’s personality, such as a power complex associated with a dictatorial leader.

While the personal unconscious is unique to each individual, the collective unconscious was the region of the unconscious mind believed by Jung to be shared by all people. Jung conceptualized the collective unconscious as being “transpersonal” in nature. The transpersonal nature of the collective unconscious reflected Jung’s view that there is a region of the unconscious mind containing a collection of general wisdom that is shared by all people, has developed over time, and is passed from generation to generation across the ages. The principal function of this wisdom is to predispose individuals to respond to certain external situations in a given manner. For example, anytime a group of individuals gets together, there is a natural tendency or predisposition for them to establish a social order.

The most significant of these predispositions or images in the collective unconscious are referred to as “archetypes.” Archetypes are universal thoughts, symbols, or images having a large amount of emotion attached to them. Their special status comes from the importance they have gained across the many generations and the significant role they play in day-to-day living. Another concept Jung used to illustrate the universal connectedness of the collective unconscious was the principle of “synchronicity.” Jung used synchronicity to explain the occurrence of two meaningful events that do not appear to have any physical cause-and-effect sequence, such as dreaming of a distant relative’s death and then receiving news a week later that the relative had died on the same day you had the dream.

While there are a variety of archetypes, there are four archetypes that play a significant role in the establishment of a balanced personality: the persona; animus/anima; shadow; and self. The “persona” is an archetype that develops over time as a result of the tendency of people to adopt the social roles and norms that go along with living with other people. From the Latin word meaning “mask,” the persona reflects what might be defined as a person’s public personality (e.g., being courteous in public). However, attaching too much emotion and importance to the persona can result in the individual losing contact with his or her true feelings and identity, which can then become dictated by others (e.g., an individual with a shallow and conforming personality). Jung believed that individuals were psychologically bisexual in nature in that each individual possesses characteristic features and tendencies of the opposite sex that are represented by the archetypes of the animus and anima. The “animus” is the masculine aspect of females, such as being aggressive. The “anima” is the feminine aspect of males, such as being nurturing. The well-developed personality contains both masculine and feminine characteristics. The “shadow” represents the dark and primitive side of personality. Like the id developed by Freud, the shadow represents all of the instinctive and impulsive aspects of personality typically repressed in the unconscious regions of the mind and kept out of the public personality.

The “self,” the most significant archetype, is that element of the personality predisposing the individual to unite all other aspects of the personality. The development of the self as an archetype reflects the desire by people across generations to seek unity and harmony. Within the individual, the self is the motivating force seeking to achieve unity and harmony between all the private and public, masculine and feminine, and conscious and unconscious aspects of the individual. Failure on the part of the self to achieve this sense of unity and balance can result in the overdevelopment of one aspect of the personality at the expense of all others.

JUNG’S PERSONALITY TYPES

According to Jung there are two general types of personality attitudes by which individuals orient themselves toward their environment: extraversion and introversion. The “extraversion” attitude is an outward orientation in which psychic energy is invested in events and objects in the external environment (e.g., preference for group activities). The “introverted” attitude reflects an inward orientation in which psychic energy is invested in internal and personal experiences (e.g., preference for spending time alone). While Jung believed that both types of attitudes are present within each personality, he thought that in each person one attitude is expressed more at the conscious level than the other.

Besides the two basic attitudes of personality, Jung also proposed the existence of four functions of personality. Each function is characterized by a specific orientation for understanding the events and experiences in the environment.

The “sensation function” involves relating to the world through the senses.
The “thinking function” refers to the tendency to relate to the world through ideas and intellect.
The “feeling function” concerns reacting to the world on the basis of the emotional quality of one’s experiences with it.
The “intuition function” goes beyond all other conscious functions and relies on a deeper, more internal sense of understanding.

As with the two attitude types, Jung assumed that each personality possesses all four functions, but one is often expressed at a predominant, conscious level at the expense of the others.

The technique of personality assessment most closely identified with Jungian principles is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI is a self-report instrument using objective criteria (i.e., standardized response and scoring procedures) based on Jung’s type theory and designed to assess how variations in the expression of the two attitudes and four functions result in differences in the way individuals use perception and judgment as general orientations to their experiences when taking in information and making decisions. The utility of the MBTI can be seen in its use in a variety of areas, including literary criticism, career-counseling, organizational consulting, design of information technology, academic advising, and the health care industry.

THE NATURE OF MENTAL HEATH AND ANALYTICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY

Mental health was represented by Jung as a balanced expression of the various archetypes. Jung proposed that well-adjusted individuals learn to incorporate private aspects of their personality into the persona and express them consciously in socially acceptable forms. The developmental concept of “individuation” is used to describe the process by which individuals become aware of the different aspects of their personality at both the conscious and unconscious level, and expend mental energy to develop and express them in a meaningful way. The development of “neuroses” is a result of the individual failing to achieve a sense of integration, resulting in the projection of the underrepresented aspects of the self (e.g., connectedness with others) on to others (e.g., blaming a spouse for not being affectionate), which serves to foster mal-adaptive interpersonal social relationships. The development of “psychosis” is a result of extreme and prolonged repression of underrepresented aspects of the self, resulting in the aspects exploding into the individual’s psyche in the form of drastic shifts away from the conscious, public persona (e.g., massive retreat into the unconscious mind and away from reality, as is with schizophrenia).

Based on Freud’s technique of psychoanalysis, Jung’s form of therapy is referred to as “analytical psychotherapy” and is characterized by a greater emphasis in the unconscious and the reestablishing of psychological balance within the individual. One method used to investigate the unconscious was the word association test. The test, which Jung invented, was used principally to help identify the client’s problematic complexes. A problematic complex is characterized by the overinvestment of mental and emotional energy into one aspect of an individual’s personality (e.g., obsession with work) at the expense of other aspects of the individual’s personality (e.g., neglecting one’s family).

Going beyond the identification of problematic complexes, Jung analyzed dreams to explore the archetypes of clients using a technique referred to as the “method of amplification,” which he also developed. In this method the client not only reports what is going on in the dream but also expands on the details as if actually a part of the dream (e.g., describing how it feels to be free and very powerful, as represented by a sports car as a symbol of the self in the dream). To facilitate this process, Jung used the dream series method, which involved amplifying and analyzing a series of dreams for the repeated occurrence of particular archetype symbols (e.g., the self appearing as the sun or a tall building). He also used the method of active imagination in which the client is asked to imagine having an interaction with the significant archetypes identified during treatment (e.g., talking to a “mechanic/therapist” about making the “car/self” perform more effectively).

JUNG’S RELATIONSHIPS WITH NAZISM

In 1933 as Adolf Hitler came to power, the German Medical Society of Psychotherapy was reorganized based on National Socialistic principles in an attempt to remove its Jewish members. An International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy was organized in Germany and permitted individual membership, including Jewish members, and national societies, including the German Society. Jung was elected the International Society’s first president in 1933 and served until 1939. Jung also served as the chief editor of Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie und ihre Grenzgebiete, a journal that eventually published an article promoting Hitler’s Mein Kampf as required reading for all psychoanalysts. Jung’s affiliation with this Nazidominated International Society led to accusations that Jung was a Nazi sympathizer. Jung maintained that his involvement with the International Society was an indirect attempt to make it possible for Jewish practitioners to maintain their professional involvement and help preserve psychoanalysis, which the Nazis viewed as a “Jewish science.” It should be noted that Jung resigned from the International Society for Psychotherapy toward the end of World War II (1939–1945), had public supporters who were Jewish, was blacklisted by the Nazis, and had his works suppressed in Germany and other occupied countries by the Nazis.

Despite Jung’s novel contributions to the study of personality and psychotherapy, the acceptance of Jung’s ideas has been limited by the vague definitions of his principal concepts (e.g., the collective unconscious, archetypes, synchronicity), which made his concepts difficult to test empirically by the traditional scientific methods. Given the difficulty in quantitative testing, Jung’s ideas have been more popular and influential in the more qualitative areas of scholarship, such as the humanities (e.g., literary criticism, mythology, and symbolism) and humanistic social sciences (e.g., anthropology and qualitative sociology) than the quantitative areas associated with postmodern experimental psychology and psychiatric medical research.

SEE ALSO Freud, Sigmund; Hitler, Adolf; Nazism; Personality; Psychology; Psychotherapy

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Douglas, C. 2000. Analytical psychotherapy. In Current Psychotherapies, 6th ed., eds. Raymond J. Corsini and Danny Wedding, 99–132. Itasca, IL: Peacock Publishers.

Ellenberger, Henri F. 1970. The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

Hall, Calvin S., and Vernon J. Nordby. 1973. A Primer of Jungian Psychology. New York: New American Library.

Jung, Carl G. 1961. Memories, Dreams, and Reflections. New York: Random House.

Myers, Isabel B., Mary H. McCaulley, Naomi L. Quenk, and Allen L. Hammer. 1998. MBTI Manual: A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychological Press.

Storr, Anthony 1991. Jung. New York: Routledge.

Bernardo J. Carducci

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences