Carl Lungs Major Accomplishments - Term Paper Example

Carl Jung Carl Jung was born on July 26, 1875 in Kesswill, of Switzerland, as son of a Paul Jung, a Protestant clergyman and Emilie Preiswerk Jung. He started learning Latin language from the ancient literature books when he was six years old, and it was first time for him to experience the beauty of language, which would motivate him to be absorbed in working on it later and give him a chance to become popular with a theory of “word association? He could decipher several complicated languages such as Sanskrit, the language of the Hindu holy books. Although the environment around him was full of well-educated people and chances that would offer more opportunities to joy the absorption of knowledge, his childhood was not as cheerful as the other people’s: he did not care about school much, since he discovered the jealousy of other people at himself. Sometimes he skipped the class using sickness as an excuse, and such a solitary attitude later affected him to form his own introspective identity. After graduating the medicine school, he met Freud in 1907 and worked together for the development of psychoanalysis. However, their relationships cooled down in 1910, and Carl started creating his own theory that would clearly explain about the personalities. Basically, Jung’s theories are based upon the relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness, and he stated that the people’s minds are ingeniously controlled by unconsciousness, without the sense of it. After suggesting the new assumptions that can be summarized into several subdivisions such as archetype, introversion and extroversion, and synchronicity, Carl Jung died on June 6, 1961, in Zunich. (Stevens 1994) Carl Jung emphasized that the unconscious determines a person’s personality. He claimed that the unconscious had two layers. The first was the personal unconscious. This is where a person’s individual memories are stored. The Jung term for the personal unconscious is “a portion of the unconscious corresponding roughly to the Freudian id.” (Zimbardo Pg.391) This is where the important details are stored when they are repressed or forgotten about. The second layer is the collective unconscious. This is an inaccessible layer that contains all learned experiences. The collective unconscious “involves a reservoir for instinctive memories which exist in all living people. They bound together generations of human history.” (Zimbardo pg. 391) These bounds of history are called archetypes. Jung also said that the collective unconscious is hereditary. According to Jung, archetypes are the contents of the collective unconscious. That is, archetype is the untrained tendency to learn and experience something in a certain way. At first, it has no definite form, but gradually it helps people to organize the way they think and perceive something. Carl Jung’s theory gives a good example of archetype, by slightly relating it to the instincts work of Freud, “…At first, the baby just wants something to eat, without knowing what it wants. It has a rather indefinite yearning, which, nevertheless, can be satisfied by some things and not by others.” Archetypes have two main groups, the anima or animus and shadow; the anima archetype for males and the animus archetype for females. The anima archetype is the female side of the masculine personality and the animus is the masculine side of the female personality. (Britanica.com) The shadow is descriptive in its name. This is the dark and negative side of our personality. Jung said that the shadow represents, “the destructive and aggressive tendencies that we don’t recognize in our personalities.” (Zimbardo Pg.392) Jung’s concept of “principle of opposites portrays each personality as a balance between opposing pairs of unconscious tendencies.” (Zimbardo pg.392) He was the first to bring up the new types of personalities called introversion and extroversion. He wrote a book called Psychological Types in 1921 about these two types as they referred to his parents, His mother was the extrovert and his father was the introvert. Introverts are preoccupied with their own little world. “Introverts focus on their own thought and feelings.” (Zimbardo Pg.392) They are not sociable and prefer to be alone. Extrovert people are more interested in the world and the things going on in it then in their own life. They are outgoing and friendly. They enjoy being in social situations. Jung claimed “ few people have all pairs of forces in balance. Usually one is more dominant determining a person’s personality.” ( Zimbardo Pg.392) Jung determined that self-actualization should be emphazied. He challenged Freud and showed how the notion of personality types is made his theory” the basis for the most widely used psychological test in the world.” ( Zimbardo Pg. 392) Jung also talked about synchronicity: according to him, synchronicity is the occurrence of two events that are neither linked casually, nor linked teleologically, yet are meaningfully related. For a long time, psychologists have argued about whether one psychological event can affect the next events and can form a mechanism as a result of it. Jung believed the coincidences were indications of how people’s minds are connected through the unconsciousness. Synchronicity has become one of precious proofs that made Carl’s psychological theory stand out from all the other ones. Although his theory was controversial and objected by many other psychologists at the period of his life, today, Carl Jung’s psychological theory represented by archetype, introverts and extroverts and synchronicity with a basis of unconsciousness is being rediscovered and supported. Since psychology is a study of human minds and behavior and it is a subject that can change whenever there comes out an innovative theory, it is not difficult to imagine Jung’s theory can be altered if the more pioneering ones appear: however, it is also clear that Jung’s archetype theory is most influential one in the field of personality and unconsciousness, for psychology. (Aziz 1990) Carl Jung has had well developed beliefs on the nature of religion and dreams. Jungs religious beliefs were based largely on personal experience, in spite of his introduction to organized religion in his childhood. Therefore, when he offers an interpretation and analysis of his patients dreams, Jung endows each symbol and fantasy with meaning. In his writing, Jung explains his perception of the collective unconscious as well as his belief in the meaningfulness of human imagination or fantasy. Jung noticed that a doctor in a patient’s dream symbolized a god, a person endowed with superhuman characteristics. This caused Jung to speculate about the religious instinct, or the "longing for god." Jungs rhetorical questions in his book The Personal and the Collective Unconscious spark a myriad of questions regarding the nature of religion. (Aziz 1990) Jung states that he is convinced that there is "some purposive meaning" in patients’ dreams and Jung wonders whether that meaning is inherently spiritual or merely psychological. Jung sees in his patients dream an archetype of a god, or at least a powerful being. However, the psychologist also wonders whether the figure of the doctor in the dream is simply a phenomenon called transference, in which the patient elevates the status of the doctor to that of a god. To the patient, a doctor is a type of god because he appears to be wiser and smarter than the patient, who comes to him for help. Whether an example of transference or of religious instinct, the dream showed that the unconscious mind works with an entirely different language than the conscious mind. The conscious mind, according to Jung, tends toward criticism; the conscious mind is mundane and sees no real meaning in symbols. On the other hand, the unconscious taps into primordial realities and perhaps spiritual truths by using a symbolic reality. The dream allows the patient to transfer his thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about the nature of god onto the doctor. This process of transference also stems from the unconscious; it is a powerful urge. Endowing the doctor with spiritual attributes can be a sign of a greater longing for god. Because of his well developed insight into religion and the human unconscious, Jung has greatly influenced New Age spiritual movements, particularly the New Thought Movement. The New Thought Movement is a spiritual movement that emerged during the late 19th century. It includes an emphasis on the ubiquitous nature of God, as well as the mind and ‘right thinking’ as central concerns. Even as the New Thought Movement was heavily rooted in 19th century psychological and spiritual doctrine – notably one can discover much of the works of William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendentalism within the movement – Jung’s theories have played a substantial role in influencing the spiritual understanding of the tenants of this spiritual philosophy. Many writers have noted that Carl Jung, despite his contribution to psychoanalysis, also functioned within a spiritual realm. Indeed, Jung’s writings have been characterized as melding secular beliefs with religious ideology. (Hanegraff 1998) Such melding of spiritual and psychological theories is witnessed within the New Thought Movement. Jung’s primary influence on this movement can be discovered in his understanding of the unconscious elements of the mind. Jung’s therapeutic theories are centered on an understanding that individuation (self-development/realization) can be achieved, in part, through an understanding of the unconscious elements of the mind. Within the New Thought Movement, these unconscious elements are equated with the God concept, so that in resolving one’s unconscious dysfunctions and moving towards individuation, then the individual has come into contact with the divine. References Aziz, Robert. (1990) C.G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity. State University of New York Press. Hanengraff, Wouter. (1998). New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. State University of New York. Stevens, Anthony. (1994) Jung: An Introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Zimbardo, Philip. (2008) Psychology: Core Concepts. Allyn & Bacon. Read More