Carl Jung and the Structure of Personality

Carl Jung and the Structure of Personality

Carl Jung

Jung the Man

Carl Jung (pronounced like Young ) was born in 1875 in Switzerland. His father was a pastor of a church, and his mother was powerful yet inconsistent with her affections. Jung described her as having two personalities (loving and harsh). He had a lonely childhood and experienced fainting spells in his early school years that made him miss months of schooling. His two brothers died before he was born. As a young boy he played by himself and invented games to keep himself entertained.

Jung s Career

Jung and Freud

Jung studied medicine at the University of Basel, but wanted to take classes in archaeology. He became interested in psychiatry and wanted to explore spiritual dimensions of human behavior. Jung met Freud in 1907. Freud treated him like a son and heir apparent to psychoanalysis theory. Jung was the first president of International Psychoanalytic Society, but broke with Freud following disagreements about the role of sexuality. In 1913 Jung severed his relationship with Freud, which caused him to experience disorientation and reading problems. Jung s psychological difficulties led to self-analysis and his analytic theory.

Jung’s Structure of Personality

The personal and collective unconscious

Psychic Energy

Psychic Energy = all psychological processes, thoughts, feelings, sensations, wishes, etc. Psyche is similar to mind and includes conscious and unconscious. Jung believed that the Unconscious mind is the source of consciousness. Libido is the appetite that seeks balance and self-realization. Jung believed that the Libido, more specifically, human sexuality, is symbolic for other hungers (striving, desires).

Ego

Ego is the conscious part of personality. The Ego is responsible for identity and continuity and selects perceptions, thoughts and feelings.

Personal Unconscious

Personal Unconscious is made up of perceptions, thoughts, feelings and memories that have been put aside and may be retrieved later. These experiences are unique to each person and are not shared. The Personal Unconscious includes a person’s life history that may be repressed or forgotten. These experiences are grouped into clusters or complexes.

NapoleonComplexes

A complex may organize around a particular person or object. Complexes make it difficult to disengage from situations, such as imaginary sickness or being angry at an opponent. Complex may act like an independent person, behaving independently of our conscious. They cover all levels of consciousness. Complexes can dominate an entire personality and can drive behavior and take over a person s life.

Was Napoleon s complex Power?

Collective Unconsciousness

Wise old man

The psyche of people is automatically organized in a way that is shared by all human beings. We share a common way to categorize experiences. Personal unconscious is made up of experiences unique to the individual. Collective unconscious is shared by all people of all generations and cultures. Collective unconscious is inherited, mythical. It consists of pre-existing forms or archetypes. Jung stated: [The collective unconscious contain] deposits of the constantly repeated themes of humanity…. a kind of readiness to reproduce over and over again the same or similar mythical ideas….”

Collective unconscious is personified as the Wise Old Man. We come from different cultures and backgrounds, but share similar roles in groups and emotional experiences. For example, there are