Carl Jung

Carl Jung is best known for his exploration of the unconscious mind, developed through his education in Freudian theory, mythology, religion, and philosophy.

Jung was born July 26, 1875 to a well-educated family in Kesswil, Switzerland. He was raised with a love for language and literature, beginning Latin lessons at the age of 6.

As a teenager, Jung led a solitary life. He did not care for school, and shied away from competition. When he went to boarding school in Basel, Switzerland, he was the victim of jealous harassment, and learned to use sickness as an excuse. He later went on to the University of Basel, intending to study archaeology, but instead decided to study medicine. After working under the famous neurologist, Krofft-Ebing, he discovered psychiatry. After graduating, Jung worked at a mental hospital in Zurich under Eugene Bleuler (who later discovered and named schizophrenia). In 1903, he married and at this time he was also teaching classes at the University of Zurich, working at his own private practice, and working on his theory of word association. He finally met Freud, in 1907, and they developed a friendship as the two compared theories. Their friendship eventually ended, and soon afterwards came WWI and a rough time of self-examination for Jung (which then led to his theories of personality). He retired as a psychiatrist in 1946, and died fifteen years later.

Jung’s theories of personality are closely related to the Freudian theories. He divided the human psyche into three categories; the ego, or the conscious mind, the personal unconscious which holds memories and such, and the collective unconscious which is the connection that all humans share. According to Jung, the collective unconscious is made up of archetypes. An archetype is the “unlearned tendency to experience things in a certain way”#. There are an innumerable amount of archetypes, which all organize experiences or materialize thoughts in their own way.

The mother, Mana, Shadow, Persona, and Syzygy archetypes are the most common. The mother archetype is a “built-in” void, which automatically seeks out a mothering figure. If the individual lacks an actual person to fill that void, he/she may live in which something else fills it. They may live a life devoted to the church (meditating on a figure of Mary), or the environment (Mother Nature), or they may have a strong connection to their “motherland”. The next archetype is Mana. This is signified in a person if they have dreams or visions of sexual organs. Unlike in Freudian theory, this does not represent a need for sex, rather strength and fertility. The shadow is where one’s animal instincts are hidden. Some refer to it as the “dark side” of the ego. According to Jung it is simply a place where there are no morals, good or bad, but this is where a complex may form if all bad energy is denied. A snake, dragon, or demon usually guarding the entrance to something (suggesting the collective unconscious) can represent the shadow. The image or “mask” one puts on for the public is known as the Persona archetype. According to Jung, nearly everyone had one and in some this can be mistaken for one’s true nature. Finally, the Syzygy is actually two archetypes in one. Jung believed that all human psyches are actually bisexual and that societal expectations force humans into realizing only half of their potential. The Anima represents the female instincts inside the male collective unconscious, and is usually symbolized by a young girl, witch, or earth mother, and is very emotional. The Animus represents the male instincts inside of the female collective unconscious, can be symbolized by a wise old man or a sorcerer, and is very logical, rationalistic, and can be argumentative. These two, which combine to make the Syzygy, are responsible for one’s love life (finding someone who fits one’s anima or animus).

In addition to the three parts of the psyche, Jung believed there were three principles of operation of the psyche. The first was the Principle of Opposites, and is much like Newton’s third law of motion. According to Jung, for every thought one has there is an equal and opposite thought. Next, is the Principle of Equivalence, which states that one’s energy is equally divided between these two thoughts. Energy is used up with the thought that one acknowledges and “does”, but for the other thought the energy is left over. If one also acknowledges that the other thought did exist, the psyche will improve