Carl Jung: Biography - Essay Example

Historical Theorist: Carl Jung. The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious Angela M. Myers American Military Historical Theorist: Carl Jung. The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. Biography It is not necessarily to be a psychologist or scientist to answer the question: “Who is Carl Gustav Jung?” This name is well-known all over the world as it belongs to one of the most significant psychiatrist and psychologist, who was born in Switzerland (Kesswil) on the 26th of July, 1875. His father was a poor Protestant clergyman who married Emilie Preiswerk, a woman from the family that could be called wealthy. Later, in 1903, Jung would repeat (in some way) his parents’ story by getting married with a woman from a wealthy family, Emma Rauschenbach, who became a mother of their five children. In his childhood Jung was behind in health, what was the reason why he studied mostly at home, having a chance to spend a lot of time with books, much more than with people. Due to this, it was difficult for Jung (1989) to make choice of only one direction for what he wished to study: My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. In the sciences I was drawn principally to zoology, paleontology, and geology; in the humanities to Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and prehistoric archeology. […] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism. In 1895 he entered the University of Basel even though he was not sure what exactly he wanted to study and one of the most important factors why such a choice was made was lack of money for some other university as Jung (1989) wrote later. In 1900 he graduated from the medical school and then entered the University of Zurich, taking position of an assistant at Burgholzli Mental Hospital, Zurich (Jung 1989) where he was working with Prof. Eugen Bleuler. After that, enrolling in psychology continued already in Paris. In 1904 correspondence between Jung and Freud started, what led to their collaboration that began in 1907. Two years later they both travelled to the United States of America and it was a period of time when their relationship started downgrading. In his autobiography Jung (1989) describes Freud’s role in his work as: … Freud became vitally important to me, especially because of his fundamental researches into the psychology of hysteria and of dreams. For me his ideas pointed the way to a closer investigation and understanding of individual cases. Freud introduced psychology into psychiatry, although he himself was a neurologist. But this union did not last for too long because already in 1912 their ways were diverged. The main reason for that became their disagreement on the understanding of the collective unconscious. That is why publishing “Symbols of Transformation” Jung upended their further relationship. All this was leading to the events of 1914 because this is the year when school of analytical psychology was founded. Also Jung (1989) mentioned in his book: At the end of July 1914 I was invited by the British Medical Association to deliver a lecture “on the Importance of the Unconscious in Psychopathology”, at a congress in Aberdeen. … [I]t seemed fateful to me that I should have to talk on the importance of the unconscious at such a time! On August 1 the world war broke out. The period of time that separated the World War I and the World War Two was filled with learning about various cultures what led to Jung’s increased interest towards Eastern religion. Also, at that time International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy was headed by the scientist who was often called mystic, what irritated him a lot. But it is hard to deny that mysticism took place in his life, although the most remarkable proof of that was his after-death experience that Jung (1989) shared in such a way: It seemed to me that I was high up in space. Far below I saw the globe of the earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light. I saw the deep blue sea and the continents. Far below my feet lay Ceylon, and in the distance ahead of me the subcontinent of India. My field of vision did not include the whole earth, but its global shape was plainly distinguishable and its outlines shone with a silvery gleam through that wonderful blue light. This is an ordinary description of the Earth, the way it looks like from the space, but the thing is that Jung experienced that in 1944 when people still were dreaming about “conquering” the space and about flying that far. So, there are many intriguing stories that were a part of his life. After the severe heart attack that Jung experienced his life had to change: he got more time for writing books and for developing more theories that he has already been working at. He contributed a lot to the modern psychology because that was him who used “extrovert” and “introvert” terms that are commonly used in the present as well as archetypes. The collective unconscious, according to Jung, has influence on everyone as it is like "memory of the mankind" that affects emotional state the most. He gave a special meaning to symbolism that he has been studying a lot in order to explain unconscious. The most significant books he wrote are "Psychological Types", "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious”, “The Red Book: Liber Novus”, “Memories, Dreams, Reflections”, “Man and his Symbols", "Answer to Job", etc. Carl Gustav Jung lived a long life and he died in 1961. He was devoted to what he was doing for the whole life and he didnt stop doing that till his last days. Contributions Carl Jung challenged himself to look for the answers of the most difficult and complicated questions. For instance, his theory of symbols has an important meaning because he was able to prove that people all over the world, not depending on their cultural background, employ symbols that are very familiar if not the same. The relevance of his studying is that the whole humanity is using experiences and memories of our ancestors and people’s behavior can be explained by the access to everything what has ever happened. This phenomenon is called the collective unconscious. Even though it is a complicated task to prove the existence of the collective unconscious, there have been quite a lot of various experiments that were aimed to prove this hypothesis. According to Rosen et al. (1991): Jung sought to prove the existence of archetypes and the collective unconscious by three main methods. First, he used the Word Association Test to demonstrate … that various complexes had been constellated in the psyches of certain individuals. … Second, he documented the presence of archetypal symbols in unconscious mental activity … of those who had not been exposed to such symbols by either education or travel. Third, Jung cited the similarities of myths and symbols in disparate cultures that had developed without contact with each other. Brown and Hannigan (2006) gained sufficient progress in “examin[ing] the ability of participants to recall archetypal symbols that have been matched with either their corresponding meanings or mismatched meanings”: Results demonstrated … [that] there was no significant difference in recall whether the Spanish word or the English word was paired with the archetypal symbol. … this study provides empirical support for the Jungian concept of the collective unconscious and ancient universal image schemas manifesting as archetypal symbols that are more easily recalled than symbol/word pairing that are not paired within the collective unconscious. In spite of the received outcome, there should be more studies with the involvement of international participants and the number of the experiments should be growing to be able to trace the consistent pattern. Jung also explained the concept of the personal unconscious that consists of the experiences and any information that people gain and learn during the whole life but do not consciously remember it due to numerous reasons. According to him, the Ego is a concept that refers to the conscious mind. Jung’s understanding of the ego differs from Freud’s one and the most distinctive difference is that Carl Jung finds that mostly unconscious is the main part of the personality. Spiegelman (2006) notices that: “[the] anticipated wholeness, one hopes, will include the achievements of individuation and enlightened group memebership in its totality. But before the mystery of the divine, we can, like Jung, remain aware that we are only our limited egos before the One who encompasses us on all sides". Jung introduced a concept of archetype, which is the understanding of things that happen in this or that way. Archetypes can be noticed the best in people’s habits, both emotional and mental ones. There are many followers of Jung’s theory who continue working on the improvement of his ideas. For instance, Benziman et al. (2012) stated in their work: Jung suggested that sometimes a disease was the best training for a physician. Therefore, only a wounded physician could treat effectively. A similar dynamic can also occur between any health professional and his/her patient. We examine various cultural representations of the archetype and demonstrate how a reading of wounded healer narratives from diverse cultures can enrich our understanding of the importance of empathy and mutuality in the practice of medicine and psychotherapy. Finally, one of the most known of his works is division for introverts and extroverts. According to this typology, the latter are more concentrated on socializing, on being active and building relationship with other people. The introverts are the opposite and their preferences are given to contemplation of thoughts they have, and to their inner states. Going further, both introversion and extroversion are two sides of the same coin because Jung’s explanation of the self states that everything and everyone is “composed” of the opposites. Jung’s contribution cannot be underestimated even though the mysticism of his school leaves lots of questions that require more studying and investigation in order to find more proofs to support his theory. Evaluation If everything had been taken for granted, it would be hard to imagine evolution and the whole humankind would stay at the same level of primitive way of thinking. Fortunately, it is not so that is why even the most genius ideas should be challenged and brought into a question. Due to this, Jung’s theory also has its weak points as well as strong ones. The main hardship is to investigate the verity of Jung’s theory in an empirical way and that is what Jung (1968) admitted himself, writing: Probably none of my empirical concepts has met with so much misunderstanding as the idea of the collective unconscious. … The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche which can be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition. Relating to the abovementioned, the other point should be underlined about the lack of individuality and a strong emphasis of people’s resemblance, which is dictated by the common experiences of the mankind. Special attention should be paid to the complexity of the theory what narrows the circle of people who are able to implement it for self analysis because it requires deep knowledge of different aspects such as psychology, religion, mythology, etc. Unfortunately, it is not possible to say that the majority of people are so well-educated, or, at least, curious enough to learn information that is diversified. That is the reason why it cannot be widely used as it is observed by Ivey et al. (2007): “Jung does not provide clearly spelled-out helping tools, counseling techniques, or psychotherapeutic techniques that are easily accessible to practitioners. Also, mastery of this theoretical approach requires extensive training and supervision.” But there are enough of positive moments to notice in Jungs theory. He is the one of those people who united science and esoterics what allowed broadcasting the subject of his studying. His theory became the firm foundation for the development of psychological approach that is wildly used today. It is getting more common to examine both physical and mental state of the patients trying to make a diagnosis because today there is no doubt that there is a tight connection between those states, which should be examined in complex. In defense of the previously mentioned fact that Jungs theory is good only for people with a certain turn of mind, Ivey et al. (2007) outlined the following: “… Jung’s thinking about the importance of helping clients learn about the symbolic meaning of their behaviors has been incorporated into various forms of play therapy and sand therapy with children.” As well as it is captured in the same source that he “used nonpathological constructs to define the challenges his clients faced in life. … he viewed clients’ depressed, angry, and confused experiences as unconscious messages that provide individuals a means to greater health and personal individuation rather than as indicators of mental illness” (Ivey et al. 2007). Comparing limitations and strengths of Jung’s theory, the latter is more essential and weights more than weak points. Sure, it requires further studies and interpretations of his heritage, more attention to the correct understanding, more researches in this field but what he did deserves gratitude as it could take ages to come up to the conclusions that he came up with during his life. Personal Response Speaking about Jung’s theory on my personal life, I implement it daily: I meet many new people in my life and understanding of their extroverted or introverted dominating nature helps me easily to find common language with them. It also assists with avoiding some conflict situations because of different characters and building stronger relationship with those ones who surround me due to the better understanding of their needs. The other aspect is that I often use psychosomatic: its sense involves understanding of both physical and psychological state in order to avoid medical treatment. Practicing it already for a few years, I am convinced that in some situations it is enough to take the right decision or to change habitual behavior for sooner recovernmetn. Carl Jung contributed a lot into the development of the practice when all cases and situations should be learnt complexly, involving various aspects. I also agree to Ivey et al. (2007) that “family is where we first experience and learn our culture. … The interplay between individual and family affective experience is the formative dialectic of culture. It is not really possible to separate individuals, families, and culture, for their interplay is so powerful and persistent." It is very easy to detect lots of simultaneousness in conduct of my family and me: there are no doubts that we are from the same family. I have never given meaning to that before I started learning Jung’s theory but getting acknowledged of it, I devoted some time for building genealogical tree and collecting family stories. As a result, I was surprised to learn that there are some life stories that are running in my family and repeat themselves from one generation to another that proves Jungs ideas. The reality is that all people are using Jung’s theory, often not knowing about that and not looking for the explanations of some events. Asking ourselves questions and increasing own curiosity may help both with finding inner harmony and improving interactions. This is what I am currently working at. References Benziman, G, Kannal, R., & Ahmad, A. (2012). The wounded healer as cultural archetype. Comparative Literature and Culture, 14 (1), 9 p. Brown, J.M., Hannigan, T.P. (2006). An empirical test of Carl Jung’s collective unconscious (archetypal) memory. Journal of Border Educational Research, 5, 114-120 Ivey, A.E., D’Andrea, M., Ivey, M.B. & Simek-Morgan, L. (2007). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: A multicultural perspective. London: Pearson Longman. 161-178. Jung, C. J. (1968). Archetypes of the collective unconscious. Collected works of C.G. Jung, 9 (1). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jung, J.M. (1989). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Vintage Books. Rosen, D. H., Smith, S. M., Huston, H. L. & Gonzalez, G. (1991). Empirical study of associations between symbol and their meaning: Evidence of collective unconscious (archetypical) memory. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 36 (2), 211-228. Spiegelman, J. M. (2006). C.G. Jung’s answer to job: A Half Century Later. Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice, 8 (1), 1-17. Read More