CARL JUNG

CARL JUNG

                      Carl Jung is the proponent of analytical psychology that rests on the assumption that occult phenomena can and influences the lives of everyone. It provided  a substitute in the form of some general urge in place of sex.  This also explains that each of us is motivated not only by repressed experiences but also by certain emotionally toned experiences inherited from our ancestors. It also talks more about the collective unconscious which tells about inherited images that includes elements that we have never experienced individually but which have come down to us from our ancestors. The highly developed elements of the collective unconscious are the archetypes. Archetype is used for self-realization which can only be attained by achieving balance between various opposing forces of personality.

                    Before we dig deeper on the ideas propagated by Carl Jung, let’s have a look at his biography briefly. He was born on July 26, 1875 in Resswil, a  town in Lake Constance, Switzerland. His parents are Johann Paul Jung who is a sentimental idealist with strong doubts about his religious faith, and Emilie Preiswerk Jung who is a daughter of a theologian. When he was still young, he started to have two views on his mother: first is realistic, practical and warm hearted; the second is unstable, mystical, clairvoyant, archaic and ruthless. He has two siblings, the one preceded him only lived 3 days after being born and his youngest sibling is nine years younger than him. At the age of three, he was separated from his mother who had to be hospitalized. It troubled Jung,  as a result, he felt distrustful about love and still associated woman with unreliability and father  who is reliable but powerless.

                   During his adolescence years, he became aware of his 2 personalities. The no.1 personality he has was he repressed the world of intuitive premonitions; extraverted and in tune to the objective world while the no. 2 personality shows his reflection of something other than himself; an old man long since dead and he’s in touch with feelings and intuitions; introverted and directed inward.

                 Jung and Freud developed a strong, mutual respect and affection for each other but it has changed because of an incident that happened when Jung asked Freud to analyze his dream.

                   In 1944, he became a professor of medical psychology at the University of Basel but poor health forced him to resign from his position the following year. He died on June 6, 1961. At the time of his death,  Jung’s reputation was worldwide, extending beyond psychology to include philosophy, religion and popular culture.

                 Going back to analytical psychology, here are the terms and key concepts included:

v  The personal unconscious is formed by the repressed experiences of  one particular individual and is the reservoir of the complexes (unstated desire).

v  Humans inherit a collective unconscious that helps shape many of their attitudes, behaviours and dreams.

v  Archetypes are contents of the collective unconscious. Typical archetypes include persona, shadow, anima, animus, great mother, wise old man, hero and self

v  The persona represents the side of personality that people show to the rest of the world.

v  The anima is the feminine side of men and is responsible for many of their irrational moods and feelings.

v  The animus is the masculine side of women responsible for irrational thinking and irrational  opinions on women

v  The great mother is the archetype of fertility and destruction

v  The wise old man archetype is the intelligent but deceptive voice of accumulated experience.

v  The hero is the unconscious image of a person who conquers an evil foe but who also has a tragic flow

v  The self is the archetype of completeness, wholeness and perfection

v  Introversion – can be compared to being “lonesome”, and people with this characteristic like to work by themselves. It is also defined as turning inward of psychic energy with an orientation toward the subjective

v  Extraversion – an attitude distinguished by the turning outward of psychic energy so that a person is oriented toward the objective and away from the subjective. People with this attitude tend to be influenced more by their surroundings than by the inner world.

v  Symbols – the symbol is a central part of Jung’s thinking. It refers to a name, term or picture that is familiar in daily life yet has other connotations beside its obvious meaning. It is a key to discovering feelings or preferences of which we are unaware. Dream symbols bring messages from the unconscious to the rational mind.

              As a summary, Jung believed that a human being is inwardly whole but that most of us have lost touch with important parts of ourselves. Through listening to the messages of our dreams and waking imagination, we can contact and reintegrate our different parts. The goal of life is individuation, the process of coming to know, giving expression to and harmonizing the various components of the psyche. If we realize our uniqueness, we can undertake a process of individuation and tap into our true self. Each human being has a specific nature and calling which is uniquely his or her own  and unless these are fulfilled through a union of conscious and unconscious.

1st:Sigmund Freud

SIGMUND FREUD

Sigmund Freud is one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. He was born on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia.  In 1873, Freud graduated summa cum laude from secondary school and began studying medicine at the University of Vienna.  He then changed his name from Sigismund to Sigmund in 1873.  He also published different studies such as about Hysteria, Psychoanalysis, The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, the Three Essays on Sexuality and many others. A Viennese physician in the early 1900s who developed the psychodynamic model in which people’s behaviour was considered to be determined by unconscious processes. This perspective believes that behaviour is brought about by inner forces over which the individual has little control. He died on September 23, 1939 in London because of cancer.

Freud’s theories were enormously influential but are subject to considerable criticism both now and during his own life.  The major theories are the following:

1.       The conscious and unconscious mind

2.       The Id, Ego and Super Ego (Psychoanalytic Theory)

3.       Psychosexual Development

4.       Defense  Mechanisms

5.       Freudian Slip

According to Freud, the mind can be divided into two parts: the conscious and the unconscious mind. The former includes everything that we are aware of. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally. A part of this includes our memory. The ordinary memory is called the preconscious. The latter, which is the unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges and memories that outside of our conscious awareness. This part mostly includes the unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict. According to him, the unconscious continues to influence our behaviour and experience even though we are unaware of these influences.

Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three elements: the id, the ego and the superego. These three elements work together to create complex human behaviours.

The id is driven by the pleasure principle which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a state of anxiety or tension. The ego on the other hand is responsible for dealing with reality. This element operates on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id’s desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. It weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. Lastly, the super ego, holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society, basically, our sense of right and wrong. This  element  provides guidelines for making judgments. It has two parts: the ego ideal and the conscience.

Based on him, personality is mostly established by the age of five. Early experiences a large role in personality development and continue to influence behaviour later in life. His theory of psychosexual development is one of the best known but also one of the most controversial. Freud believed that personality develops through a series of childhood stages during which the pleasure-seeking energies of the id become focused on certain areas. This psychosexual energy or libido was described as the driving force behind behaviour. The five stages are the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latent period and genital stage.

In Sigmund Freud’s topographical model of personality, the ego is the aspect of personality that deals with reality. While doing this, the ego also has to cope with the conflicting demands of the id and the superego. The id seeks to fulfill all wants, needs, and impulses while the superego tries to get the ego to act in an idealistic and moral manner. Because of anxiety provoking demands created by id, superego and reality, the ego has developed a number of defense mechanisms to cope with anxiety. In many cases, these defenses work unconsciously to distort reality.

Freud suggested on his book, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, "Two factors seem to play a part in bringing to consciousness the substitutive names: first, the effort of attention, and second, and inner determinant which adheres to the psychic material," Freud suggested in his book. "Besides the simple forgetting of proper names there is another forgetting which is motivated by repression." This explained the Freudian slip, which in simpler definition, is a verbal or memory mistake that is believed to be linked to the unconscious mind, saying the wrong word or even misinterpreting a written or spoken word. According to Freud as well, unacceptable thoughts or beliefs are withheld from the conscious awareness, and this slip helps reveal what us hidden in the unconscious.

While his theories are often viewed with skepticism, Freud’s work continues to influence psychology and many other disciplines to this day. He is known as the Father of Psychoanalysis.

Talking so much about what he contributed to Psychology, there are some interesting facts about Sigmund Freud.

1.       He was initially an advocate and user of cocaine.

Before the harmful effects were discovered, cocaine was often used as an analgesic and euphoric. Freud developed an interest in the potential antidepressant effects of cocaine and initially advocated its use for a variety of purposes.

2.       He developed the “Talk Therapy”

Using talk therapy, the therapy provider looks for patterns or significant events that may play a role in the client’s current difficulties. Psychoanalysts believe that childhood events and unconscious feelings, thoughts and motivations play a role in mental illness and maladaptive behaviours.

3.       Freud had more than 30 surgeries to treat mouth cancer.

He had been a heavy cigar smoker in all his life. In 1939, after his cancer has been deemed inoperable, Freud asked his doctor to help him commit suicide. The doctor administered three separate doses of morphine and Freud died on September 23, 1939 at the age of 83.