Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who founded an analytical psychology approach. Made a great contribution to the development of psychology and its scientific base, and developed so-called depth psychology and countercultural method. For Jung, psychology has seemed to address the insistence that previous researchers and scientists based only on the study of mentally ill persons. Jung developed a study of personality based on the full measure of human beings. Despite great changes and innovations, some of his theories have limitations caused by a detailed focus on trivial and tangential phenomena.
Carl Jung was born on July 1875 in Kesswil. His family was a religious one headed by the father of Carl Jung, a pastor in the local church. When Carl Jung was 12 years old, he thought that he was two different people, himself and an old man living in the 18th century. After a head injury, Carl Jung began to suffer from fainting spells, but some of them were self-induced so that Jung could stay away from school.
These symptoms disappeared when Carl Jung overheard his father remarking that he might be an epileptic. Still, biographers underline that these transformations and changes in his personality made a great impact on his views and perception of mental factors and psyche (Schultz and Schultz 2007). Until late adolescence, Carl Jung was frequently depressed. As a young man, Carl Jung became interested in philosophy and later developed an interest in psychology and psychiatry.
In 1902, after receiving his medical degree, Carl Jung worked under Eugen Bleuler at the Burghölzli Hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. During this period, Jung made his first attempts to describe the human mind and psyche. S. Freud referred to Jung’s early work on word association as “the first bridge between experimental psychology and psychoanalysis” (Clark 1992, p. 98). Jung also advanced the idea that dementia praecox could be a psychosomatic disorder of the brain and therefore within the scope of psychoanalysis (Casement 2001).
When Jung met Freud in 1907, their collaboration lasted for thirteen uninterrupted hours. Jung did much to publicize the psychoanalytic movement in Switzerland, which Freud appreciated. Later, Freud viewed Jung with suspicion because he believed him to be a possible competitor in psychology. This may explain why Freud’s autobiography contains no mention of Jung. Jung strongly disagreed with Freud’s psychoanalytic libido theory.
Jung’s publication of Psychology of the Unconscious in 1912 signified the formal break between the two men (Stevens, 2001). Myths, legends, and stories from the classics had always interested Jung, who connected them with dreams primitive mentality, and what he called the “collective unconscious,” around which he built his system of analytical psychology. With the development of this theory, he founded a rival school to Freud’s.
He was interested in the future of the psyche as well as in its past. The terms “introvert” and “extrovert” were introduced by him around 1900. As well as a psychiatrist, he was also a painter and a sculptor (Mansfield et al 1998). Following a cardiac infarction in 1944, Jung was seriously ill and became obsessed with the thought that his doctor would die in his place, which indeed happened. Jung died in Zürich, during a spectacular thunderstorm; his favorite tree was struck by lightning two hours after his death (Casement 2001).
Transpersonal psychology developed by Jung includes efforts to explore Eastern and other world religions, to discover the unrecognized kinship among the spiritual traditions of mankind, to disclose those substantial contributions that other spiritual traditions might have to make to Western religions and to identify the psychological insights and understanding implicit in such religious systems. Transpersonal psychology pursues the scientific investigation of such phenomena as the spontaneous yearnings for the spirit, the topography of meditative consciousness, and the spontaneous, often unchurched human experiences of spiritual realities (Stevens, 2001).
The humanistic critique has led to many changes in academic psychology, which is now more open to the study of states of consciousness, cognition, values, and spiritual experience (Mansfield et al 1998). Nevertheless, many of the original challenges that led to the birth of humanistic psychology remain. Psychology is still fragmented, with continuing tensions between psychology and religion and between psychology and the arts. Jung revisits the continuing need for humanization of psychology and for the humanization of the society and culture within which psychology evolves. The culture remains challenged, with a breakdown in family life, moral values, and community safety (Casement 2001).
Jung made a great contribution to analytical psychology. In this sphere, Jung identified anima and animus as the main points of unconsciousness. Analytical psychology transcends any single religious viewpoint and is deliberately both scientific (empirical) and spiritual in orientation. Analytical psychologists have entered into a dialogue with a variety of world religions, seeking to discover within each implicit psychological principle and models for spiritual growth.
He paved the way for this dialogue decades earlier, commenting in a 1942 address on the central role of myths, religious symbols, and religious archetypes in understanding human experience and healing human pain (Clark, 1992).
He remarked that we are “forced to go back to pre-Christian and non-Christian conceptions and to conclude that Western man does not possess the monopoly of human wisdom and that the white race is not a species of Homo sapiens especially favored by God. Moreover, critics cannot do justice to certain collective contemporary phenomena unless we revert to the pre-Christian parallels” (Jung 2002, p. 82). Analytical psychologists have also undertaken a number of empirical investigations of spiritual and paranormal experiences (Mansfield et al 1998).
Carl Jung developed a theory of the psyche of humankind and depth psychology. Jung observed in this regard that when psychologists speak in primordial images, they connect with the center of the psyche of humankind; psychologists lift the idea they are sharing out of the occasional and transitory into the realm of transcendent and eternal meaning, transmuting personal destiny into universal destiny.
We evoke those forces of hope and certainty that “have enabled humanity to find a refuge from every peril and to outlive the longest night” (Jung 1966, p. 82 cited Clark 1992, p. 87). Although the average Christian in the pew is not intensely aware of the progressive and conservative scholars’ debates, his or her life is nevertheless touched by the practical effects that reach congregations through the pastor, church, and mass media. As one might expect, there are two popular streams of thought that correspond to the two major scholarly divisions in this conversation (Casement 2001).
Jung’s humanistic psychology receives its place in the personality theory and. Humanistic and existential psychotherapy are two more modalities to be checked off on the insurance-company credentialing forms. All of this represents progress, but with a possible cost. Humanistic psychology originally sought authenticity in each moment but has been trivialized. Further, the sociological and careerist forces shaping vocational behavior in our society tend to place an emphasis on achievement, productivity, and a product or outcome, and these influences operate as effectively on psychologists as on other occupational groupings.
The psychologist with “existential leanings” too easily becomes preoccupied with writing publishable articles for peer-reviewed journals on existential themes and with placing these articles in the best existential journals. The pursuit of writing, talking, and theorizing about existence can become a substitute for truly grappling with the anguish and horror of human existence in its darkest forms (Schultz and Schultz 2007). The religious background had an impact on his theories and the development of the countercultural method. Religious figures, both preachers and authors, have declared the labels “secular humanism” and “new age” synonymous with godless, pagan, and anti-Christian.
It is not unusual in more conservative communities for a patient to drop out of psychotherapy suddenly, even though the patient was progressing rapidly, because the therapist has recommended a relaxation skill, a meditation tape, or a relevant book that the patient’s pastor then condemns as godless or new age. The result has been efforts in both the private sector and the legislatures to contain medical costs and to remove barriers to competition. Patients can no longer simply make their own decisions as to which health care provider to use or which procedure to undergo (Schultz and Schultz 2007).
In sum, psychotherapy developed by Jung was once a reflective retreat from the pressures of work and life, is now one more arena in which both doctor and patient are supposed to concentrate on a goal-oriented and efficient use of time with a measurable outcome. A specific limitation on how much psychological treatment each individual can receive is now usual practice. Psychological therapy has produced many unique strategies that focus the therapist’s and patient’s energies more efficiently toward bringing about those changes the patient most needs.
References
Casement, A. (2001) Cark Gustav Jung London: Sage.
Clark, J. J. (1992) In Search of Jung Historical and Philosophical Enquiries, London: Routledge.
Jung, C. G. (2002). Modern man in search of a soul. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Mansfield, V. et al. (1998). The Rhine-Jung Letters: Distinguishing Parapsychological from Synchronistic Events. The Journal of Parapsychology, 62 (1), 43.
Schultz, D. P., Schultz, S. E. (2007). A History of modern Psychology. Wadsworth Publishing; 8 edition.
Stevens, A. (2001). Jung: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions). Oxford University Press, USA.