The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was fascinated by our inner world. After his collaboration with Freud, he developed his own system for understanding the human psyche, which he called analytical psychology. It was primarily intended as a theoretical basis for the treatment of mental illness. His views have little resonance in contemporary psychology. Yet Jung had a strong impact on our cultural baggage, with concepts such as archetype, shadow, collective unconscious, synchronicity, anima and animus.
Jung and Freud: divergent views
Sigmund Freud / Source: Max Halberstadt, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Jung was regarded by his mentor and friend Sigmund Freud as his ‘heir apparent’: together they would spread Freud’s psychoanalysis. But things didn’t go as planned. Their views on the cause of mental illness differed too much, which made further cooperation impossible. Like Freud, Jung viewed the psyche as composed of a number of separate but interacting systems. For Jung, the three most important were the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. It was mainly the existence of that last part of the psyche that offended Freud. When Jung openly criticized Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex during a conference in 1912, it was clear that their paths would part.
Different interpretation of the libido
The main point of contention was Freud’s emphasis on repressed feelings of pleasure, which he saw as the sole culprit for the occurrence of the diseases of the mind. In Freud’s view, the unconscious was a repository of traumatic experiences suffered by the person as a child. Jung disagreed with Freud about the predominant role of sexuality. He believed that the libido was not just sexual energy, but instead a general psychic energy that could stimulate the individual spiritually, intellectually and creatively. In other words, it is the energy required for the personality to function. Jung compares it to nourishing the body: in the same way, a person is ‘nourished’ by his experiences. Forms of psychic activity include sensation, memory, thinking, feeling, wishing, striving and desiring.
Different views on the structure of the psyche and the unconscious
Jung and Freud agreed that in addition to the rational, conscious aspect of the personality, there is another underground, hidden part of the psyche: the unconscious. However, their opinions differed about the contents of that unconscious part of the psyche. Freud assumed that man’s instinctive needs came into conflict in the unconscious with the demands and expectations of society.
Association technique in psychoanalysis
To gain access to the unconscious, Freud and Jung used word associations: by having their patients respond to stimulus words, they brought hitherto unconscious contents into consciousness. A person’s responses to stimulus words could then be linked to repressed ideas and impulses that influenced his behavior. Jung had further refined Freud’s technique by introducing hand electrodes that recorded changes in skin resistance as the patient read out words. An emotional response was interpreted as indicative of a complex. Although he had success with his ‘psycho-galvanometer’, Jung wanted to make faster progress in his exploration of the unconscious.
Different views on dreams
Because Jung’s views on the psyche differed so much from those of Freud, he was bound to develop different ideas about the meaning of dreams. He was familiar with Freud’s work on Dream Interpretation from 1900 and agreed that dreams were manifestations of the unconscious.
The ‘big dreams’
Unlike Freud, however, Jung believed that dreams do not always relate to one’s personal life. There are dreams that resemble visions from another world . Jung calls this ‘the big dreams’. It was a phenomenon he had often noticed in patients undergoing psychoanalytic treatment.
Dream Sequences
An innovation that Jung introduced to dream analysis is the dream sequence method. Particular attention is paid to recurring themes in dreams, in contrast to Freudians who analyze each dream in isolation. Jung did not believe in unchanging symbolism and interpretation of dreams. His method of interpreting dreams is called amplification.
Alchemical symbolism was linked by Jung to the collective unconscious. According to him, this engraving is the symbol of the meeting of the conscious (the sun, the masculine) with the unconscious (the moon, the feminine), the dove of the Holy Spirit symbolizes the union of opposites. / Source: Anonyme (ouvrage: Le Rosaire des philosophes), Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Amplification
In amplification, the analyst collects as much material as possible around a particular image from a patient’s dream. So everything in literature, mythology, religion, etc. that can have a connection by association with what the patient says. With this, the Jungian analyst aims to discover the symbolic meaning and the archetypal origin of the patient’s fantasies. For example, Jung found in alchemy a rich source of symbols from which he could draw in his amplification technique.
Predictive dreams
It is also striking that as a scientist he accepts that a dream can occasionally even have a predictive meaning. It is then, he states in ‘Man and his symbols’, as if our unconscious sends warning messages or gives guidelines on the path to be followed to restore psychological balance.
Towards an own theory of psychoanalysis
Between 1907 and 1920 Jung developed the main features of his own theory, which he called analytical psychology . By the end of this period, the theory included the psychological types, the theory of complexes and archetypes, the notions of persona, shadow, anima and animus, and the process of individuation.
Key concepts of Jung’s psychology
Both Freud and Jung believed in the existence of a personal unconscious. Jung, however, refused to trace everything the patient experienced in his life to repressed childhood instincts. According to him, their model of the psyche was missing a part that could explain why his patients, for example, dreamed about images that could not be traced back to personal experiences from their lives. This led him to postulate the existence of the collective unconscious with the archetypes as universal patterns of experience.
Personal and collective unconscious
A patient’s dream in Jungian analysis: a tree, the roots of which form a gorge through which a path leads to a valley. / Source: MACT, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-4.0)
Freud and Jung used common concepts such as conscious, unconscious and repression. However, Jung made a distinction between the personal unconscious (Freud’s unconscious) and the collective unconscious. The ,psyche, (personality as a whole) contains all conscious or unconscious thoughts, feelings and behaviors. When some experiences are not admitted to consciousness because they are too disruptive, for example, they end up in the personal unconscious.
Accessing the collective unconscious through dreams and meditation
Jung’s ‘collective unconscious’ contains instinctive drives and behavioral patterns that we have in common as a human species. In Jung’s view, just as physical characteristics are passed on to subsequent generations via DNA, all memories and experiences of our ancestors are also passed on genetically. Normally we are not aware of this part of the psyche. According to Jung, we can only access it through dreams and fantasies that arise from the unconscious, or through meditation. Artists are even able to tap into this universal source of collective images. They unconsciously draw inspiration from this collective of primitive images.
The collective unconscious as a source of dreams and magical phenomena
Jung’s collective unconscious is very reminiscent of the ‘Akasha Chronicle’ of the esotericists. According to this originally Hindu concept, all events that ever occurred, every thought and emotion, would be forever preserved in a kind of ethereal database of humanity. Jung also saw the collective unconscious as the source of our dreams and of paranormal or magical phenomena.
Archetypes as universal images in the collective unconscious
Jung called the contents of the collective unconscious archetypes. In Jung’s view, images and thoughts have universal meanings in the most diverse cultures; images that can appear in dreams, literature, art or religion and show strange similarities around the world.
In other words, according to Jung, the human mind has innate characteristics that have been ‘imprinted’ on it as a result of evolution. This universal predisposition stems from our ancestral past. Examples of this are fear of the dark, or of snakes and spiders. This idea was later revived in the theory of evolutionary psychology.
Jung’s five main archetypes are the anima and animus, the persona, the shadow and the self.
The anima
The anima is the archetype of the feminine side of the male psyche. The anima includes everything that a man’s psyche associates with regard to the opposite sex – his deeply felt unconscious beliefs. Jung says about this:
,Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman, not as an image of a particular woman, but of woman as a representation of femininity. This image is fundamentally unconscious, as if it has been engraved as an imprint or ‘archetype’ with all its impressions ever created by the woman. Since this image is unconscious, it is always unconsciously projected onto the person of the beloved, and is one of the main reasons for passionate love or aversion.,
Because it concerns unconscious contents, knowledge about the anima can only be acquired indirectly through projections that men make on women that may or may not correspond to their inner image of women.
The animus
The animus is the counterpart of the anima in women: the male side of the female psyche. According to Jung, the animus is a more complex archetype than the anima. In men, the anima consists of only one dominant image, while in women’s unconscious, multiple animus images exert their influence when they enter into relationships with men.
Jung states in Unpublished Seminar Notes. Visions I that the natural function of animus and anima is to maintain their position between the individual consciousness and the collective unconscious. They function as a bridge that leads to the archetypal images of the collective unconscious. The persona has a similar function, which acts as a connection to the outside world.
Jung also has a theory about how animus and anima originated in the psyche. He explains that there has been intense interaction between men and women for centuries, and that this has evolutionarily led to both sexes adopting characteristics from each other.
Person
The persona is a person’s social mask, what he or she shows or wants to show to the world. The function of this archetype is to conform to society’s expectations, so that the individual can maintain smooth and safe contact with the outside world. As such, the persona also protects the person’s vulnerable inner psyche. However, there may also be disadvantages.
Danger of identifying too strongly with the persona
When the person identifies too strongly with the persona, his personality may overstep its boundaries. This phenomenon is called psychological inflation. It produces personalities who are literally beside themselves and behave like fanatics. For example, they think of themselves as a hero, a sage or a saint, while in reality this is completely alien to them. In such identifications one sees a dangerous effect of collective unconscious images that impose themselves on personal consciousness.
Living untruthfully
It doesn’t have to be so dramatic, but often a person only starts to think about the choices he or she has made later in life. The fact that someone’s life suddenly seems empty and meaningless is of course a consequence of the fact that he has tried very hard to pretend to be someone he is not. During such a period, during a ‘dark night of the soul’, the person realizes that he has been lying to himself all along about who he is and what he wants. After all, too long of identification with the persona leads to an untruthful life, comparable to Sartre’s ‘mauvaise foi’: the human being who deceives himself by ascribing to himself an alien essence.
Jung states in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious that every vocation or profession has its own characteristic persona: the professor identifies with his book, the tenor with his voice. This identification is provoked by the expectations of the environment, so that the persona is not what we are, but what we ourselves and others think we are.
The shadow
The shadow is the archetype that represents one’s own gender and is also responsible for relationships with people of the same gender. Jung sees it as the most powerful and potentially dangerous archetype because it is deeply rooted in human evolutionary history.
Manifestation of the shadow through projections and dreams
In Jung’s psychoanalytic system, the shadow represents the unconscious animal, instinctual side of a person’s personality. Because it is an irrational part of the unconscious, it can only be accessed through projections and dreams. A difficult aspect of the shadow to deal with is its inability to manifest itself through projections. It is a process that takes place completely unconsciously and that everyone has to deal with: we do not notice our own mistakes, but project them on others (on our partner, for example). In other words: we attribute our negative qualities to others as if they belong to him or her. Anyone who is jealous blames it on the other. Those who are stingy are more likely to notice that mistake in someone else. By the way, it is very difficult to recognize your own projections, because the ego does not want to know anything about negative qualities.
In dreams, the shadow manifests itself in the form of an animal or as a person with animal qualities. Jung advises to get to know the shadow side – the animal side – of yourself. Those who fail to do this allow the shadow to become stronger , which can lead to drama in everyday life when unruly strong emotions suddenly break through.
Positive aspects of the shadow
On the positive side, the shadow, our eager and creative nature, makes life exciting. Living without a shadow would be boring, especially when its counterpart, the persona, is overemphasized. The shadow is the unstoppable source from which art and all forms of creativity spring. No inspiration for the artist without the shadow. No zest for life and energy without him. Rejection of drives flattens the personality. In this respect, the shadow is an important and valuable archetype, which can never or should never be ‘tamed’. Anyone who manages to get his ego (the part of the psyche that determines our identity) to work well with his shadow, is bursting with vitality and zest for life.
The self as the center of the personality
In Jung’s model of the psyche, the self is the center of the entire personality. As such it includes the conscious, the unconscious and the outer self. The conscious I (or ego) as a conscious identity therefore does not coincide with the self. In other words, the self is the inner, guiding factor, and psychic growth is only possible by listening to the subconscious messages of the self in dreams.
The Process of Individuation
Jung conceived of the self as the central archetype of the personality or psyche. Within the collective unconscious it ensures that the archetypes are harmoniously attuned to each other. However, this does not just happen by itself. The development of the self, Jung says, can take a lifetime, because man only undergoes the process of ,individuation, later in life. Today this would be called ,self-actualization., For Jung, individuation is becoming an individual. Acquiring self-knowledge is therefore a long-term process.
Integration of unconscious contents has a healing and harmonizing effect.
A well-functioning self gives a feeling of harmony and satisfaction with oneself. Conversely , when a person continues to project his own mistakes onto others, this is an indication that the self is not working properly: the personality in this case is insufficiently developed and individualized. Becoming aware of certain things has a therapeutic effect: integration of unconscious contents leads to greater harmony with one’s own nature. The process of individuation, Jung says, never ends. In his writings he compares it to the pursuit of enlightenment in Buddhism, which is also only available to a few.
Personality types
One of Jung’s achievements that is still used today – albeit in a modified form – is his typology of personality. In particular, the current Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a psychological test derived from Jung’s typology that is used as a basis for determining the different types of personalities.
Four psychological functions
Jung provided psychology with a refined model for classifying the different personality types. He distinguished between four psychological functions of which only one could be dominant in a personality: thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Thinking and feeling are Jung’s ,rational functions, because they function in a judgmental manner, while sensation and intuition are referred to as ,irrational functions,.
Jung’s explanation
To better understand the four psychological functions , Jung explained them in his book ‘Man and his symbols’ with a simple association:
,Sensation tells us that something exists; thought tells us what it is; feeling tells us whether it is pleasant or not; and intuition tells us where it comes from and where it is going., go.,
– Jung: Man and his symbols p. 49
About the dominant function
As mentioned, each of us has one dominant function with which we approach the world and try to understand it.
Some examples:
- Someone with sensation as a dominant psychological function has his or her behavior determined by inner and outer stimuli that come to him or her.
- The intuitive personality type trusts his gut feeling and doesn’t have to think about it to know something. He blindly follows the inspirations that come over him without considering whether what he is doing is reasonable or well thought out.
- A thinking type, on the other hand, lets his behavior mainly be determined by what logic and thinking tell him. That is also the reason why Jung referred to it as a rational function.
- Someone with feeling as a dominant function makes decisions and judges based on the feeling that something causes in him. Even if thinking is not used in the first place, there is still an appreciation or judgment. therefore, for Jung, feeling is a rational function.
On the inferior function
Jung places thinking as a function opposite feeling, and sensation versus intuition. This means that when someone has thinking as their dominant function, he or she tends to switch off feeling because it gets in the way of thinking. Exactly the other way around, a feeling type will eliminate thinking as much as possible. After all, these functions contradict each other. The same applies to sensing and intuitive types. Because feeling is not so differentiated in a thinking type, it is called its ‘inferior’ function. For example, a feeling type has thinking as an inferior function, a sensation type has intuition as an inferior function and an intuitive personality type has sensation as an inferior function.
For example, Jung says the following about the functions of perception and intuition:
,These functions have nothing to do with each other. When you observe physical facts [sensation type] you cannot simultaneously ‘look around the corner’ [intuitive type]. If you look at the eyes of intuitive people, you see that their gaze only passes brushes things over – they don’t look closely, they glance at something because they want to take in things in their entirety.,
– Jung: On Foundations of Analytical Psychology, p.29
Introversion and extroversion
In addition to the four functions, Jung also classified personalities according to two fundamental attitudes: introversion and extroversion. However, that has nothing to do with what is usually understood by it (shyness versus exuberance). It does have to do with the direction of the psychic energy (which Jung calls ‘libido’).
Extroverts are more concerned with the outside world: with the people and things that constantly dominate their thoughts. It is the other way around with introverts: the introvert focuses his attention on his own inner self and is constantly busy with it.
It seems to be a contradiction, but it is not impossible that an introverted personality gives an extroverted impression. However, he will not allow the outside world to upset his psychological balance. Conversely, someone who gives an introverted impression may be strongly focused on the outside world, which he needs for his well-being and mental balance.
Focus on the outside world or on the inner world
In other words: the consciousness of extroverted types is focused on the outside world, and that outside world determines their decisions. Introverts’ consciousness, on the other hand, is focused on their inner world and it is that inner world that will ultimately determine their decisions.
Combinations of functions and postures
Combining Jung’s four psychological functions with the two attitudes creates a total of eight possible personality types:
- the extroverted thinking type: the ‘scientist’, knowledge collector, inclined to repress his emotional side;
- the introverted thinking type: the philosopher, thinking inwardly, also protects himself against feelings from the unconscious;
- the extroverted feeling type: mostly women, changeable feelings, sentimental;
- the introverted feeling type: mostly women, hide their strong feelings, inscrutable;
- the extroverted sensation type: mostly men, fact gatherers, practical, realistic, self-indulgent;
- the introverted sensation type: attention to one’s own inner sensations, outwardly calm and passive;
- the extroverted intuitive type: usually women, fickle and unstable, always looking for something new;
- and the introverted intuitive type: the type of artist, dreamer, fantasist. enigmatic person, difficult communication.
Meaning of Jung for today
In his research into the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche, Jung came into contact with the borderline between science and esotericism. Freud already reproached him for his mysticism, and even today Jung’s interest in paranormal phenomena and esoteric subjects such as astrology and the I Ching seems to be ‘unscientific’. However, Jung was convinced that it was important for the mental balance of his patients to understand the symbolism of the unconscious. He studied this symbolism in the archetypal images that he repeatedly encountered in different cultures in dreams, art, literature and religion. The more practice-oriented psychologists reject his model of the psyche, but that does not alter the fact that Jung’s concepts such as archetype, persona, animus and anima, synchronicity and collective unconscious are now part of our cultural baggage. In any case, Jung’s psychoanalysis remains attractive to more spiritually oriented people.