THEORY OF CARL JUNG:Biographical Sketch, Principles of Opposites, The Persona

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Personality Psychology PSY 405

Lesson 7

THEORY OF CARL JUNG

(Analytical Psychology)

Biographical Sketch

Carl Jung was born in 1875 in a Swiss village. Religion was a strong theme running through his early life,

may be because his eight uncles and his father was a pastor in a Swiss church.

Jung saw his mother as a dominating person. His parents were most of the time fighting which caused Jung

to isolate himself from the family which caused him to rely on his dreams vision and fantasies. When Jung

was 10 year's old, he carved out a wooden man from a ruler and kept it in a little wooden case and dressed

him in black coat, boots and a top hat. This figure was a refuge for Jung whenever he was depressed and

troubled, he would visit him and share his secret with this refuge figure.

Jung believed in dual aspect of his personality, one as a school boy and one as the wise old man and the

wise old man was about one hundred year's old than the school boy who was apparently the real person.

Jung by profession was a doctor. Jung developed a strong relationship with Freud after reading Freud's

book called The Interpretation of Dreams. Jung began to apply his ideas in his therapy. Jung wrote a

number of letters to Freud. Freud invited him to visit him and to accompany him to America to deliver a

series of lectures at Clark University on Psycho-analysis. The relationship between Jung and Freud initially

flourished because Freud named Jung as the president of his Psycho-analytic society. But the relationship

soon suffered a setback when Jung began to criticize Freud's overemphasis on psycho-sexual development.

Jung advised Freud that even the liberal American audience did not like Freud's emphasis on sex. The two

broke-up and Jung called it as the dark years of his life when he began to explore his own theory of

personality with emphasis on ego, collective un-conscious, personal un-conscious and archetypes. IN 1909

Freud was invited by Stanley Hall to come to America and introduce his Psychoanalysis to the American

audience. Jung accompanied Freud to America during his visit to America Jung noted that even the liberal

American audience did not approve Freud's over emphasis on sexual interpretation and on unconscious

motives in each and every behavior pattern. All in good faith Jung advised Freud not to emphasize on sex,

unconscious and childhood experiences, Freud ignored and soon broke his relations with him and as a

punishment the president-ship of the Psychoanalytic society was given to Adler.

Concepts of the Theory

Libido: Libido is the driving force of the personality. It is the general biological life energy that is

concentrated in solving different problems as they arise. For Jung, Libido is the creative life force that leads

to continuous psychological growth of the person, when we are engaged in activities such as eating,

sleeping, studying, walking, and talking, all these needs require energy and Libido is that store house which

provides energy for all our physical, psychological and spiritual needs. For Freud, Libido is the main sexual

aggressive force or energy, while for Jung the Libidinal energy is the life energy, not just required for sex

and aggression.

Equivalence: The principle of Equivalence is the first law of the thermo dynamics (Thermo mean heat

and dynamics mean the movement so it refers to the flow of heat). The first law of thermo-dynamics states

that the amount of energy in a system is fixed. It is also called law of conservation of energy. Now our

psyche-individual also possesses psychic-energy which is Libido and the amount of Libido is fixed. Energy

may change form but its total amount will remain the same. You may invest your energy in one activity say

studying more and sleep less while another student may sleep more and study less. So energy is simply

changing its form but its total amount remains the same. Example

The conscious and unconscious are the two aspects of the individual which use energy - libido. when you

concentrate more on conscious activities like talking , walking, socializing then libido is being utilized in

conscious but it can be used for unconscious activity so psychical energy is changing forms only.

Entropy:

This is the second law of thermo-dynamics, which says that there is tendency towards equalization of

energy within a system, for example, all components of the psyche have a tendency to equalize their energy

Personality Psychology PSY 405

level e.g. the conscious and the un-conscious are the components of the psyche and there will be a tendency

that the energy levels of the two components should be equal.

Principles of Opposites:

According to Newton to every action, there is an equal opposite reaction which is the third law of motion.

For Hegel everything carries its own negation or antithesis, we can say, that the un-conscious is the

opposite of the conscious, the rational is the opposite of the irrational, and the introvert is the opposite of

the extrovert, as far as our psychical system is concerned.

Components of Personality

Ego:

Ego is our every conscious experience. It is our thinking, feeling, remembering, perceiving. So it is

responsible for every thing, we do. Ego is responsible for our everyday functions and activities.

It is our sense of identity.

Example:

All your daily activities and your personal identity as student of VU are due to ego.

The personal un-conscious consists of repressed or forgotten or not vary vivid or clear memories. It consists

of clusters of emotionally loaded thoughts which Jung labeled as complexes. A complex is a personally

disturbing cluster of ideas connected together by a common feelings or emotions e.g. the mother complex

or the father complex or the power complex or the money complex is a thought which is given a lot of

importance by the person and he would invest a lot of energy in activities related with the mother complex

or any other which is important to him. Jung reformed Wundt's word association test. This test reveals and

detects complexes by studying the common response patterns among mother and daughter, father and son,

thus showing that a family background has an influence in forming the concept of complex.

The Collective Unconscious: It refers to our ancestral experiences, memories from untold millions of

years, so it is fragments of all human history that we inherit from our forefathers. Jung labeled these

ancestral experiences as archetypes. An archetype is an inherited predisposition to respond to certain

aspects of the world in certain ways. This concept is the crowning principle of Jung's theory. Jung gave us

the following archetypes:

Persona, Anima, Animus, Shadow and Self

The Persona: Persona is the mask. It is a Greek word which means the mask or cover which the actors use

to wear on the stage. It refers to individual's public personality. It is our very polite and full of manner

public personality. Personal may deceive other people but is only a small part of our psyche. It should not

be mistaken and taken as the complete whole person. The persona and the real person that is the public

personality and the real personality should be closer to one another for a good healthy adjustment.

Anima: This is the female component of the male psyche. It comes in to existence because of the

experiences that women have had with men over centuries. It facilitates women to have the better

understanding of the other gender. Secondly, it provides a framework within which males interact with

females.

Animus: The animus is the masculine component of the female psyche. The male who has a strong animus

would help him in taking care of all domestic chores which females are competent in.

Shadow: It is the darkest, deepest part of the psyche or the animal side of the human psyche. As the word

shadow shows, it is the devil, the monster, the evil, the destructive, damaging, revengeful side of you and

me.

Self: The self is that component of the psyche that strives to unite, harmonize and integrate all components

of the psyche in to one whole. When this process takes place, we say that the individual has self actualized

or he has achieved his life goal.

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