Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud's Theories of Human Behavior - Essay Example

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud Introduction Carl Jung (1875-1961) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) were two individuals whose theories on human personality would completely affect the way that people viewed the human mind. Carl Gustav was a practicing psychotherapist while Sigmund Freud was created the discipline of psychoanalysis. The two men had seemingly identical beliefs about human behavior, but also had contrasting beliefs about concepts such as the ego, the psyche, and the state of unconsciousness. Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud’s Theories Sigmund Freud’s beliefs about personality were based on past experiences in an individual’s childhood. Freud stated that all human beings had three personality levels. These were the ego, the id, and the superego. The level of the id is the one that houses a person’s primitive drives and supports the enactment of decisions that are purely based on pleasure. The id’s objective is to avoid pain at all costs and only seek for pleasurable sensations. The ego, on the other hand, identifies the significance of reality and makes decisions based on concepts such as judgment, perception recognition, and memory. The last level, the superego, is dedicated to seeking for perfection (Reber, 2006). This level houses the individual’s accepted social morals and ideals in the conscience. Jung had different views about the different mental levels in the conscious mind. Instead of the ego, id, and superego, Jung perceived the human thought process as constituting of an individual level of unconsciousness, an ego, and a collective unconscious. According to Jung, the ego was actually the conscious mind which had connections with the individual unconsciousness level. Jung also stated that while the personal unconsciousness level was tied to an individual’s emotions and had the ability to affect a person’s behaviours, the level of the collective unconscious is responsible for connecting humanity on various levels. For instance, experiencing religious communion in places of worship, falling in love, or even having identical dreams are all occurrences that result from collective consciousness. In regards to the collective unconscious, Freud and Jung had different references to its contents. While Jung referred to the unconscious’ contents as archetypes, Freud referred to them as instincts (Reber, 2006). For Jung, the archetypes that filled the unconscious realm were of a spiritual nature; Freud, on the other hand, believed that the instincts in the unconscious were of biological extraction. Jung would go on to generate personality typologies which included the concepts of extroversion as well as introversion. Analysis of the Unconscious according to Freud and Jung For Carl Jung, Freud’s analysis on the meaning of the instincts contained in the unconscious was unnecessarily negative (Schultz and Schultz, 2004). Jung did not entirely dismiss the premise that some reactions in the unconscious were based on negative past experiences. Moreover, he went on to find other reasons for the vast majority of archetypes contained in the unconscious. Jung stated that while Freud was accurate in emphasizing on the existence of a personal unconscious, there was an even more deeper level- the collective unconscious. Jung also expressed doubts about Freud’s connection of dreams with generalized subjects. For Jung, dreams have a lot of significance which can only be deciphered when psychoanalysts become cognizant of the individual’s personal history. Another aspect in which Freud and Jung had different meanings of subjects had to do with the contents of the collective unconscious. For Freud, the unconscious contained elements that were received by the unconscious even without the conscious realm recognizing this reality. This action is driven by numerous environmental determinants which the conscious mind is not aware are even present. While Carl Jung recognized the existence of such factors, he did not believe that they existed due to personal experiences (Schultz and Schultz, 2004). He instead believed that human activities are motivated by unconscious material that are evolutionarily inherited. The accuracy of Carl Jung’s theory on the Unconscious Carl Jung was initially Sigmund Freud’s student. However, Jung did not believe in Freud’s assertions about past negatives being the only things that affected the unconscious realm of the human thought process. One of the main reasons why Jung’s interpretation of the human collective unconscious is more practical and constructive than that of Freud’s psychoanalysis is because Jung’s interpretation has positive aspects that help rather than heal. For instance, Jung’s theory seeks to psychologically explain the significance of the role that religion plays in the formation of unconscious thoughts. Jung’s theory holds that people are mainly shaped by experiences that they have gone through even as they strive towards self-actualization. In addressing the significance of self-actualization within the collective unconscious, Jung demonstrated that it was his belief that the collective unconscious is an area that has constructive tools which help individuals to achieve their life goals (Nystul, 2006). Sigmund Freud’s belief in repressed negative memories being held in the collective unconscious was more indicative of the notion that the collective unconscious was quite destructive because it held all the things that people did not wish to confront. Another reason why Jung’s theory is more useful and believable than that of Freud is because Freud’s psychoanalysis hypothesis cannot provide an explanation for children’s dream imagery in the same way that Jung’s might. Children usually have vivid dreams about different subjects. In addition, children tend to have more complex dreams than adults. Moreover, children cannot be said to have repressed memories from earlier life experiences. Jung’s theory accepts the reality of dreams without ascribing their existence to negative experiences. This is the more positive outlook and is thus more useable in environments such as counseling settings. Another reason why Jung’s theory is more believable than Freud’s is because it can be applied in different environments with similar results. Carl Jung did not merely create a theory after engaging in lengthy periods of self-reflection. Jung gained a lot of experience by conducting studies on the human thought process in different societies across the world. Jung studied oriental as well as African cultures (Schultz and Schultz, 2004). This allowed him to come up with a theory that was more well rounded than that of Freud. While Freud was too dependent on his individual battles when determining the basis of his theory on human thought, Jung, as a result of his experiences, created a more holistic theory on the human mind which could be applied in different cultures. Jung’s theory also gives more acceptable explanations for occurrences in the course of personality development. Essentially, Jung’s theory asserts that the real personality development can only realistically take place during an individual’s adulthood (Castellana and Donfrancesco, 2005). According to Jung, the passage of childhood witnesses the struggle of the child’s ego to differentiate from those of the child’s parents. In the early years of human existence, the child is more easily affected by his or her parent’s actions because he or she has not developed the personal ego- and so is vulnerable to the will of his or her parent’s egos. With the passage of years, the child’s ego develops further and becomes independent from the parent’s egos. With the development of the child’s ego, the parent’s actions slowly begin to cease having a big effect on the child. Such revelations could not be conduced from Freud’s one-sided argument on the significance of repressed memory in children as well as adults. Conclusion Both Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud created theories that benefited humanity. Jung was a student of Sigmund Freud and learned a lot of facts from him. However, Carl Jung would create a more practical theory after further developing Freud’s theories. Even though both Jung and Freud felt that there was an actual hierarchical connection between the “conscious” or “unconscious”, it was Jung who elected to develop this premise further. Jung believed that Freud was accurate in stating that instinct was one of the motivations of the collective unconscious; however, Jung also believed that there were deeper functions beyond instinct which inspired the generation of instinct. In general, Jung’s theory is more acclaimed in modern psychology than Freud’s because it digs deeper into the factors that form the collective unconscious. References Castellana, F., & Donfrancesco, A. (2005). Sandplay in Jungian analysis: Matter and symbolic integration. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 50, 367-382. Nystul, M. S. (2006). Introduction to counseling: An art and science perspective (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Reber, J. S. (2006). Secular psychology: What’s the problem? Journal of Psychology and Theology, 34, 193–204 Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2004). A history of modern psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. Read More