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Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, influential thinker, and founder of
analytical psychology.
Karl Gustav II Jung was born on July 26, 1875 in Kesswil, in the Swiss canton
(state) of Thurgau, as the fourth but only surviving child of Paul Achilles Jung
and Emilie Preiswerk. His father, Paul Jung, was a poor rural parson in the Swiss
Reformed Church while his mother, Emilie, came from a wealthy, established Swiss
family.
Six-year old Jung.At six months, Paul Jung acquired a position at a better
parsonage in Laufen and the family moved there. Meanwhile, the tension between Paul
and Emilie was growing. An eccentric and depressed woman, Emilie spent much of the
time in her own separate bedroom, enthralled by the spirits that she said visited
her in the night. Emilie left Laufen for several months of hospitalization near
Basel for an unknown physical ailment. Young Carl was taken by his father to live
with Emilie's single sister in Basel, but later brought back to the vicarage.
Emilie's continuing bouts of absence and often depressed mood influenced his
attitude towards women — one of "innate unreliability," a view that he later called
the "handicap I started off with." After three years of living in Laufen, Paul Jung
requested a transfer and was called to Kleinhüningen in 1879. The relocation
brought Emilie in closer contact to her family and lifted her melancholy and
despondent mood.
A very solitary and introverted child, Jung was convinced from childhood that he
had two personalities—a modern Swiss citizen, and a personality more at home in the
eighteenth century. "Personality No. 1," as he termed it, was a typical schoolboy
living in the era of the time, while No. 2 was a dignified, authoritative, and
influential man from the past. Although Jung was close to both parents, he was
rather disappointed in his father's academic approach to faith.
A number of childhood memories gave him the basis for many of his later theories.
As a boy he carved a tiny manikin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pupil's
pencil case and placed it inside the case. He then added a stone which he had
painted into upper and lower halves of, and hid the case in the attic. Periodically
he would come back to the manikin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with
messages inscribed on them in his own secret language. This ceremonial act, he
later reflected, brought him a feeling of inner peace and security. In later years,
he discovered that similarities existed in this memory and the totems of native
peoples like the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim, or the tjurungas of
Australia. This, he concluded, was an unconscious ritual that he did not question
or understand at the time, but was practiced in a strikingly similar way in faraway
locations that he as a young boy had no way of consciously knowing about. His
theories of psychological archetypes and the collective unconscious were inspired
in part by this experience.
Shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel,
at age 12, he was pushed unexpectedly by another boy, which knocked him to the
ground so hard that he was for a moment unconscious. The thought then came to him
that "now you won't have to go to school any more." From then on, whenever he
started off to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at home for the
next six months until he overheard his father speaking worriedly to a visitor of
his future ability to support himself, as they suspected he had epilepsy. With
little money in the family, this brought the boy to reality and he realized the
need for academic excellence. He immediately went into his father's study and began
poring over Latin grammar. He fainted three times, but eventually he overcame the
urge and did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, "was when I learned
what a neurosis is."
Jung's unique and broadly
influential approach to psychology has emphasized understanding the psyche through
exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy.
Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician for most of his
life, much of his life's work was spent exploring other realms, including Eastern
and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and
the arts. His most notable contributions include his concept of the psychological
archetype, the collective unconscious, and his theory of synchronicity.
Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern
humans rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating
spirituality and appreciation of the unconscious realm.
 Constructs
Psychosexual development
Psychosocial development
Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious
Id, ego, and super-ego
Libido • Drive
Transference • Resistance
Important
Figures
Sigmund Freud • Carl Jung
Alfred Adler • Anna Freud
Karen Horney • Jacques Lacan
Ronald Fairbairn • Melanie Klein
Harry Stack Sullivan
Erik Erikson • Nancy Chodorow
Important
works
The Interpretation of Dreams
Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis
"Beyond the Pleasure Principle"
Schools of
Thought
Self psychology • Lacanian
Analytical psychology • Object relations
Interpersonal • Relational
Attachment • Ego psychology
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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