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ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY: CARL JUNG

INTRODUCTION

Analytic psychology rests on the assumption that occult phenomena 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. According to Jung, the human personality is imbedded in the past, present and future; it consists of conscious
and unconscious elements, masculine and feminine traits, rational and irrational impulses, spiritualistic and animalistic
tendencies and tendency to bring all these contradicting behavior into harmony with each other. Self-actualization is achieved
when such harmony exists. But self-actualization must be sought. It does not happen automatically. Jung also emphasized that
religion is a major vehicle in the journey towards self-actualization.

BIOGRAPHY
- Carl Gustav Jung was born on July 26, 1875, in Kesswil, Lake Constance, Switzerland. Jung’s father, Johann
Paul Jung, was a minister in the Swiss Reformed Church, and his mother, Emilie Preiswerk Jung, was the
daughter of a theologian. He had a dominant mother and a weak father. Because of the constant quarrels between
his parents, Jung tended to isolate himself from the family and engaged in dreams remained for Jung important
sources of information about himself and his future. Jung’s mother’s family had a tradition of spiritualism and
mysticism. During his school years, Jung gradually became aware of two separate aspects of his self, and he
called these his No. 1 and No. 2 personalities. At first he saw both personalities as parts of his own personal
world, but during adolescence he became aware of the No. 2 personality as a reflection of something other than
himself—an old man long since dead. At that time Jung did not fully comprehend these separate powers, but in
later years he recognized that No. 2 personality had been in touch with feelings and intuitions that No. 1
personality did not perceive.

Between his 16th and 19th years, Jung’s No. 1 personality emerged as more dominant and gradually
“repressed the world of intuitive premonitions”. As his conscious, everyday personality prevailed, he could
concentrate on school and career. In Jung’s own theory of attitudes, his No. 1 personality was extraverted and
in tune to the objective world, whereas his No. 2 personality was introverted and directed inward toward
his subjective world. Thus, during his early school years, Jung was mostly introverted, but when the time came to
prepare for a profession and meet other objective responsibilities, he became more extraverted, an attitude that
prevailed until he experienced a midlife crisis and entered a period of extreme introversion. Jung’s first choice of a
profession was archeology, but he was also interested in philology, history, philosophy, and the natural sciences.

When he returned to Switzerland in 1903, he married Emma Rauschenbach, a young sophisticated woman from
a wealthy Swiss family.

The years immediately following the break with Freud were filled with loneliness and self-analysis for Jung. From
December of 1913 until 1917, he underwent the most profound and dangerous experience of his life—a trip
through the underground of his own unconscious psyche.

Although Jung’s journey into the unconscious was dangerous and painful, it was also necessary and fruitful. By
using dream interpretation and active imagination to force himself through his underground journey, Jung
eventually was able to create his unique theory of personality. During this period he wrote down his dreams, drew
pictures of them, told himself stories, and then followed these stories wherever they moved. Through these
procedures he became acquainted with his personal unconscious. Prolonging the method and going more
deeply, he came upon the contents of the collective unconscious—the archetypes. He heard his anima speak
to him in a clear feminine voice; he discovered his shadow, the evil side of his personality; he spoke with the
wise old man and the great mother archetypes; and finally, near the end of his journey, he achieved a kind of
psychological rebirth called individuation.

LEVELS OF THE PSYCHE

Unlike Freud, however, Jung strongly asserted that the most important portion of the unconscious springs not from
personal experiences of the individual but from the distant past of human existence, a concept Jung called the
collective unconscious. Of lesser importance to Jungian theory are the conscious and the personal
unconscious.

CONSCIOUS
- According to Jung, conscious images are those that are sensed by the ego, whereas unconscious
elements have no relationship with the ego. Jung’s notion of the ego is more restrictive than Freud’s. Jung
saw the ego as the center of consciousness, but not the core of personality. Ego is not the whole
personality, but must be completed by the more comprehensive self, the center of personality that is
largely unconscious. In a psychologically healthy person, the ego takes a secondary position to the
unconscious self. Thus, consciousness plays a relatively minor role in analytical psychology, and an
overemphasis on expanding one’s conscious psyche can lead to psychological imbalance. Healthy
individuals are in contact with their conscious world, but they also allow themselves to experience their
unconscious self and thus to achieve individuation.

PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS
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- The personal unconscious embraces all repressed, forgotten, or subliminally perceived experiences of
one particular individual. It contains repressed infantile memories and impulses, forgotten events, and
experiences originally perceived below the threshold of our consciousness. Our personal unconscious is
formed by our individual experiences and is therefore unique to each of us. Some images in the
personal unconscious can be recalled easily, some remembered with difficulty, and still others are beyond
the reach of consciousness. Jung’s concept of the personal unconscious differs little from Freud’s view of
the unconscious and preconscious combined.

a. COMPLEXES
- These are the contents of the personal unconscious. A complex is an emotionally toned conglomeration of
associated ideas. It is a core or pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions and wishes organized around
a common theme.

Example: We might say that some people have a complex about power or status, meaning that they are
preoccupied with that theme to the point where it influences behavior. They might try to become powerful
by running for elective office, or to identify or affiliate with power by driving a motorcycle or a fast car. By
directing thoughts and behavior in various ways, the complex determines how that person perceives the
world.

COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

 In contrast to the personal unconscious, which results from individual experiences, the collective
unconscious has roots in the ancestral past of the entire species. The collective unconscious is
responsible for people’s many myths, legends, and religious beliefs. It also produces “big dreams”, that is,
dreams with meaning beyond the individual dreamer and that are filled with significance for people of every
time and place. It is the collective unconscious is the storehouse of hidden memory traces that were
inherited from our ancestral past. It is our minds’ residue of human evolutionary development. Jung
theorized that the components that make up the collective unconscious are universal types or propensities
that we all share and that have a mythic, overarching quality.

a. ARCHETYPES
`
- These are the contents of the Collective unconscious. It is ancient or archaic images that derive from the
collective unconscious. They are similar to complexes in that they are emotionally toned collections of
associated images. But whereas complexes are individualized components of the personal unconscious,
archetypes are generalized and derive from the contents of the collective unconscious. It has a biological
basis but originate through the repeated experiences of human’s early ancestors.

TYPES OF ARCHETYPES
The side of personality of people shows to the world. It is the artificial,
1. PERSONA phony self that we show to others; the personality “mask” that we wear in
public.
The archetype of darkness and repression, it represents those qualities
we do not wish to acknowledge but attempt to hide from ourselves and
2. SHADOW
others. It is the dark cruel side of us that contains animal urges and
feelings of inferiority.
It is the feminine side of men that originates in the collective unconscious
3. ANIMA
as an archetype and remains extremely resistant to consciousness.
The masculine archetype in women. It represents the irrational moods and
feelings. The animus is symbolic of thinking and reasoning. It is capable of
4. ANIMUS influencing the thinking of a woman, yet it does not actually belong to her.
It belongs to the collective unconscious and originates from the
encounters of prehistoric women with men.
The derivative of the anima and animus. Both man and woman possess a
great mother archetype. This preexisting concept of the mother is always
associated with both positive and negative feelings. Therefore it
5. GREAT MOTHER
represents two opposing forces:
1. Fertility and nourishment
2. Power and destruction
Also the derivative of the anima and animus. It is the archetype of wisdom
6. WISE OLD MAN and meaning, symbolizes humans’ preexisting knowledge of the mysteries
of life.
Represented in mythology and legends as a powerful person, sometimes
7. HERO part god, who fights great odds to conquer or vanquish evil in the form of
dragons, monsters, serpents, or demons. According to Jung, you
Jung believed that each person possesses an inherited tendency to move
toward growth, perfection, and completion and he called this innate
disposition in the self. It is the most comprehensive of all archetypes
because it pulls together the other archetypes and unites them in the
8. SELF
process of self-realization. It possesses conscious and personal
unconscious components, but it is mostly formed by collective
unconscious images. It represents the unity, integration, and harmony of
the total personality.

DIMENSIONS OF PERSONALITY
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In this section on the dynamics of personality, we look at Jung’s ideas on causality and teleology and on
progression and regression.

1. CAUSALITY AND TELEOLOGY- Jung accepted a middle position between the philosophical issues
of causality and teleology. In other words, humans are motivated both by their past experiences and
by their expectations of the future.

2. PROGRESSION AND REGRESSION

- To achieve self-realization, people must adapt not only to their outside environment but to their outside
environment but to their inner world as well.
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 Adaptation to the outside world- involves the forward flow of psychic energy and is called progression.
The backward flow of psychic energy on the other hand is called regression. Both progression and
regression is essential if people are to achieve individual growth or self-realization.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES
1. ATTITUDES- Jung defined an attitude as a predisposition to act or react in a characteristic direction. He
insisted that each person has both an introverted and an extraverted attitude, although one may be
conscious while the other is unconscious.

a. EXTRAVERSION- Attitude of the psyche characterized by an orientation toward the external world
and other people. It is usually being open, sociable, socially assertive, oriented towards others.

b. INTROVERSION- Attitude of the psyche characterized by an orientation toward one’s own thoughts
and feelings. It is being withdrawn, shy, focus on self, thoughts and feelings.

2. FUNCTIONS
- Both introversion and extraversion can combine with any one or more of four functions, forming eight
possible orientations, or types.

TYPES OF FUNCTION EXTRAVERTED INTROVERTED

1. THINKING- logical
intellectual activity that
produces a chain of ideas.
Extraverted Thinking- tends to be
logical, objective and fair. They can be
so organized and so driven towards
achieving results that they frequently
end up being promoted to work in
management. Once they have
organized themselves, they are ready to
organize everyone else around them.
Introverted Thinking- people react to
external stimuli, but their interpretation
of an event is colored more by the
internal meaning they bring with them
than by the objective facts themselves.

2. FEELING- the feeling to
describe the process of
evaluating an idea or event.
3. SENSING- The function that
receives physical stimuli
and transmits them to
perceptual consciousness.
Extraverted Feeling- people use
objective data to make evaluations.
They are not guided so much by
their subjective opinion, but by
external values and widely accepted
standards of judgment. They are
likely to be ease in social situations,
knowing on the spur of the moment
what to say and how to say it.
Examples are businessmen and
politicians.
EXTRAVERTED SENSING- people
perceive external stimuli objectively,
In much the same way that these
stimuli exist is reality. Their
sensations are not greatly
influenced by their subjective
attitudes.
Introverted Feeling-people base their
value judgments primarily on subjective
perceptions rather than objective facts.
Example: Critics of the various art
forms make much use of introverted
feeling, making value judgments on
the basis of subjective individualized
data.
INTROVERTED SENSING- people are
largely influenced by their subjective
sensations of sight, sound, taste, touch
and so forth.
They are guided by their interpretation
of sense stimuli rather than the stimuli
themselves.

Examples: Proofreader, house Examples: Portrait artists, especially

painter, wine taster, or any other job those whose paintings are extremely
demanding sensory discriminations personalized, rely on an introverted-
congruent with those of most sensing attitude.
people.

4. INTUITING- Intuition EXTRAVERTED INTUITING- are INTRAVERTED INTUITIVE- people are

involves perception beyond oriented toward facts in the external
the workings of world. Rather than fully sensing them,
consciousness. however, they merely perceive them
subliminally. Because strong sensory
stimuli interfere with intuition.
Example: Inventors- they must inhibit
distracting sensory data and
concentrate on unconscious solutions
to objective problems. They may
create things that fill a need few other
people realized existed.
guided by unconscious perception of facts
that are basically subjective and have little or
no resemblance to external reality. Their
subjective intuitive perceptions are often
remarkably strong and capable of motivating
decisions of monumental magnitude.
Example: Mystics, Prophets, surrealistic
artists, or religious fanatics, often appear
peculiar to people of other types who have
little comprehension of their motives.
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DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY

A. STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
1. CHILDHOOD- Divided childhood into 3 sub-stages:

a. ANARCHIC PHASE- is characterized by chaotic and sporadic consciousness. The “Island of

Consciousness” may exist, but there is little or no connection among these islands. Experiences of the
anarchic phase sometimes enter consciousness as primitive images, incapable of being accurately
verbalized.

b. MONARCHIC PHASE- development of the ego and by the beginning of logical and verbal thinking. During
this time children see themselves objectively and often refer to themselves in the third person.

c. DUALISTIC PHASE- when the ego is divided into the objective and subjective. Children now refer to
themselves in the first person and are aware of their existence as separate individuals.

2. YOUTH- The period from puberty until middle life is called youth. 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. According to
Jung, youth is, or should be, a period of increased activity, maturing sexuality, growing consciousness, and
recognition that the problem-free era of childhood is gone forever. The major difficulty facing youth is to overcome
the natural tendency to cling to the narrow consciousness of childhood, thus avoiding problems pertinent to the
present time of life. The desire to live in the past is called the conservative principle.

3. MIDDLE LIFE- Jung believed that middle life begins at approximately age 35 or 40, by which time the sun has
passed its zenith and begins its downward descent. Although this discipline can present middle-aged people with
increasing anxieties, middle life is also a period of tremendous potential. They are capable of giving up the
extraverted goals of youth and moving in the introverted direction of expanded consciousness. Their psychological
health is not enhanced by success in business, prestige in society, or satisfaction with family life. They must look
forward to the future with hope and anticipation, surrender the lifestyle of youth, and discover new meaning in
middle life.

4. OLD AGE- as the evening of life approaches, people experience a diminution of consciousness just as the light
and warmth of the sun diminish at dusk. If people fear life during the early years, then they will almost certainly fear
death during the later one. Fear of death is often taken as normal, but Jung believed that death is the goal of life
and that life can be fulfilling only when death is seen in this light.

B. SELF- REALIZATION/INDIVIDUATION- Psychological rebirth, or individuation. It is the process of becoming an

individual or whole person. This process of “coming to selfhood” means that a person has all psychological
components functioning in unity, with no psychic process 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 self-realized individuals have elevated
all four of the functions to a superior position, an extremely difficult accomplishment.

C. NEUROSIS AND PSYCHOSIS

- Progress toward self-realization is not automatic. If the person grows up in an unhealthy and threatening
environment, where the parents use harsh and unreasonable punishment, growth is likely to be stifled. Repressed
evil forces within the psyche may also erupt without warning to produce personality dysfunction. Under these
conditions, the outcome may be neurosis or psychosis.

JUNG’s METHODS OF INVESTIGATION

1. WORD ASSOCIATION TEST - this is the oldest method in which the subject is asked to respond to some
stimulus words with the first word that comes to his mind. Jung typically used a list of about 100 stimulus words
chosen and arranged to elicit an emotional reaction.

2. DREAM ANALYSIS- The purpose of Jungian dream interpretation is to uncover elements from the personal and
collective unconscious and to integrate them into consciousness in order to facilitate the process of self-realization.

3. SYMPTOM ANALYSIS- Symptom analysis focuses on the symptoms reported by the patient and is based on
the person’s free associations to those symptoms. It is similar to Freud’s cathartic method. Between the patient’s
association to the symptoms and the analyst’s interpretation of them will often be relieved or disappear.

4. ACTIVE IMAGINATION- This method requires a person to begin with any impression; a dream image, vision,
picture, or fantasy and to concentrate until the impression begins to move. The person must follow these images to
wherever they lead and then courageously face these autonomous images and freely communicate with them. The
purpose of active imagination is to reveal archetypal images emerging from the unconscious. It can be a useful
technique for people who want to become better acquainted with their collective and personal unconscious and
who are willing to overcome the resistance that ordinarily blocks open communication with the unconscious.

5. JUNGIAN PSYCHOTHERAPHY- Jung identified four basic approaches to therapy, representing four
developmental stages in the history of psychotherapy.

a. Confession of pathogenic secrets (catharsis)

b. Interpretation, explanation, elucidation
c. Education of patients as social beings
d. Transformation- By transformation, he meant that the therapist must first be transformed into a healthy
human being, preferably by undergoing psychotherapy. Only after transformation and an established
philosophy of life is the therapist able to help patients move toward individuation, wholeness, or self-
realization.
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3 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHIC ENERGY

a. OPPOSITION PRINCIPLE- the existence of opposites or polarities in physical energy in the universe, such
as heat versus cold, height versus depth, creation versus decay. So it is with the Psychic energy: Every
wish or feeling has its opposite.

b. PRINCIPLE EQUIVALENCE- Jung applied to psychic events the physical principle of the conservation of
energy. He stated that energy expended in bringing about some condition is not lost but rather is shifted to
another part of the personality. Thus, if the psychic value in a particular area weakens or disappears, that
energy is transferred elsewhere in the psyche. The psychic energy used for conscious activities while we
are awake is shifted to dreams when we are asleep.

c. ENTROPY PRINCIPLE- A tendency toward balance or equilibrium within the personality; the ideal is an
equal distribution of psychic energy over all structures of the personality.