Final Research/Term Paper on C.G. (Carl) Jung in Historical Psychology Figure - Essay Example

These explorations into the elements of the mind brought Jung into close connection with Sigmund Freud, from whom he learned much but also eventually came to disagree with. His work in psychology expanded into the Eastern traditions as he attempted to reconcile the Eastern and Western approaches. This included explorations into the worlds of dreams, mythology, religion, art and philosophy among other things. His ideas about archetypes and the collective unconscious caused a stir within the psychological world that continues to be debated today.

His name has grown as familiar as the name of Freud in common scientific discussions. He spent his life as a student, clinician, and writer, travelling the world as a part of his investigations. He died on June 6, 1961, but his work continues to influence thought into the present. Carl Jung was a man with an insatiable curiosity and an intense desire to discover the secrets of mankind’s internal demons, a curiosity that began in his childhood and would lead him through numerous personal and external trials producing along the way a body of work that continues to have an influence on psychological thought today.

Jung grew up in a household divided by social distinctions. In the Switzerland to which he was born, society was strictly stratified and predominantly conservative Protestant. His mother, a woman on the verge of ‘Old Maid’ status at the time she got married, was from one of the proudest lineages in Basel with a significant degree of wealth, yet she had received only one offer of marriage. Jung’s father was from a very questionable and liberal background, was a poor man from a poor family and employed in a profession, the clergy, which was not commonly associated with great wealth – particularly not when one could not trace his family back centuries within Switzerland (Bair, 2003).

However, Jung did not enjoy a strong bond with his parents, which is reflected