Carl Jung - Biography, 3 levels of psyche, Archetypes

Carl Jung

[Brief Biography of Carl Jung]

• The founder of Analytical Psychology
• The son of Paul Achilles Jung and Emilie Preiswerk Jung
• Born in Kesswil, Switzeland in 1875, died in 1961 (85 years old)
• Paternal Grand father

             - Carl Gustav Jung
                    - Physician

• Maternal Grand father

             - Samuel Preiswerk
                    - Saved a seat for his first dead wife

• Physician
• Interested in the occult

             - Interested in alchemy, attended séances

• Interested in mythology

             - Travelled the world

• Hold a close relationship with Freud

             - Breaking up their relationship led to Jung's middle life crisis wherein he explored
                his unconscious

[3 Levels of psyche]

• Personal Conscious

             - The Ego is the center of consciousness

• Personal Unconscious

             - Experience, feeling, and thoughts not admitted into consciousness
             - Complexes
                     - Related thoughts and emotions with a common theme
                     - e.g. Messianic complex, mother complex, father complex

• Collective Unconscious

             - The level of consciousness shared by all human beings
                    - Tendency for humans to have the same shared experience
             - Universal concepts are called Archetypes

[Archetypes]

• Death & Resurrection

             - Jesus Christ
             - Osiris & Isis
             - Wiccan God & Goddess
             - Inanna's prescent to the underground
             - Phoenix

• Archetypes are abstract universal ideas

             - Archetypal images or symbols are more concrete
                    - Mythology
                    - Personal experience
                    - Dreams

[Development via Archetypes]

• Persona

             - The side of personality shown to the world
             - Not the true self
             - Must be kept in balance

• Shadow

             - Darkness & Repression
             - Always comes back to us
             - First test of courage

• Anima / Animus

             - Anima > Feminine side
             - Animus > Masculine side
             - Second test of courage

• Self

             - Archetypes of Archetypes, most important
             - Completion
             - Symbolized by Mandala
                    - May also be in the form of divine figures

[Individuation]

• Self-Realization

             - The ultimate goal of life
             - Balancing and synthesizing opposites
             - The unconscious and conscious working in harmony
             - Assimilating the self archetypes