Carl Jung The best known of Freud’s intellectual heirs and of his colleagues was Carl Jung. He had been Freud’s BFF from 1906 until 1913. He fell into disfavor with Freud with he developed his own psychoanalytic theory known as analytic psychology to differentiate it from Freud’s psychoanalysis. Jung was very tolerate of new ideas (probably because Freud was not of his)…Jung’s followers eventually became known as Jungians. Like Freud, Jung emphasized the unconscious determinants of a personality. However, he altered Freud’s theory concerning consciousness and unconsciousness. Jung believed that people have not only a personal unconscious (same as Freud’s unconscious) that stores material that has been forgotten or repressed but also an inherited collective unconscious.

Collective Unconscious Jung’s second layer was called the Collective unconscious and it is a store of human concepts shared by all people across all cultures. Each person shares this unconscious with the entire human race. “It contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual.” Jung called these memories archetype although they are not memories of actual experiences. Archetypes are emotionally charged images and thought forms that have universal meanings. (the supreme being, the hero, the nurturing mother, fairy godmothers, wicked witches, wise old men, rebirth and resurrection)

These archetypes show up frequently in dreams and are often manifested in a culture’s use of them in art, literature and religion. According to Jung, these images from very different cultures often show striking similarities because they all come from our collective unconsciousness. These images influence our thoughts and feelings and that they help form a foundation on which personality develops. He like Freud placed a huge emphasis on dreams and the symbols and figures in dreams.

Examples of Archetypes: THE MOTHER ARCHETYPE: range of images of mother archetype are almost inexhaustible. It may also be symbolized in a variety of impersonal forms Kingdom Of God, church, university, city or country, earth, woods, sea, moon, gardens, caves, cooking vessels, certain animals--cow, hare). Evil symbols include, in the Western context, dragons, witches, graves, deep water, and death. THE CHILD ARCHETYPE: Also takes many forms--child, god, dwarf, hobbits, elf, animals--monkey--or objects: jewels, chalices or the golden ball (trickster like). It represents original or child like conditions in the life of the individual or the species, and thus reminds the conscious mind of its origins and helps to keep them continuous THE WISE OLD MAN: is the archetype of meaning or spirit. It often appears as grandfather, sage, magician, king, doctor, priest, professor, or any other authority figure. It represents insight, wisdom, cleverness, willingness to help, moral qualities. His appearance serves to warn of dangers, provide protective gifts and so one (Gandalf in Lord of the Rings). As with the other archetypes the wise old man also possesses both good and bad aspects.

Consciousness Jung also placed importance on the conscious, more than Freud did. Jung believed that one archetype is the sense of self. According to Jung, the self is a unifying force of personality that gives people direction and provides a sense of completeness. (Like Maslow’s self actualization) Every person’s conscious sense of self can be characterized by 4 functions of the mind– thinking, feelings, intuition and sensation. We all have these in our conscious, but we are identified by the one that becomes our primary form of expression. Jung believed that people could form healthy personalities by bringing them together or integrating the conscious elements with the collective unconscious archetypes. This is called individuation (becoming the individual you were meant to be) All humans start with a mask we wear to make a particular impression on others; it may reveal and conceal our real nature. It is called an artificial personality-- a compromise between a person's real individuality and society's expectations. It is made up of things like professional titles, roles, habits of social behavior. It serves to both guarantee social order and to protect the individual's private life.

How do you Achieve Individuation? Jung points out that our society prepares its youth for the first half of life in terms of a proper education, but provides little for the middle-aged to prepare them for the second half of life (he notes that a key exception is religion for those who accept it). He calls the first half of life the natural phase (establishing yourself in the world, being in a family…), and the second half the cultural phase (finding your life’s purpose and meaning). There are many ways to find meaning, but Jung suggested the following… Being conscious of the shadow: The shadow is our dark side, containing those things that we have repressed or ignored for one reason or another. It usually manifests to us in dreams as an archetypal figure who is dark and ominous. One must confront and accept their shadow to move past it and become a whole person. 2. Becoming conscious of the anima or animus: Basically, the anima is the feminine soul or inner femininity of every man, and the animus is the inner masculinity of every women. The individuation process is, above everything else, a process of wholeness. This includes sexual completeness

The Shadow

Animus and Anima

3. Becoming conscious of the archetypal spirit: for men this usually appears in their thoughts and dreams as the wise old man, for women, the earth spirit or mother earth. 4. Becoming conscious of the Self. Jung called this final step self-realization. The Self is often symbolized by a circle or mandala, glyphs which represent completeness. Jung also noticed that the mandala or “magic circle” has served as a symbol of the unified wholeness of the self in practically every culture. The individuation process is primarily one of uniting opposites. In the first step, we unite good and evil and try to see ourselves as capable of both. In the second, we see ourselves as containing both masculine and feminine characteristics. In the third step we must unite matter and spirit, form and formlessness, body and psyche.

Mandala Center: represents all we want to be and are striving to be. Jung had his patients draw mandala’s frequently and he himself drew one every day because he believed they represented the unconscious self and that disorders could be seen in them. Mandala Center: represents all we want to be and are striving to be.

Buddhist Mandala

Meso-American Mandala

Native American Celtic