Carl Jung

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

Carl Jung believed that dreams were a method of communicating with the unconscious mind through revealing the true feelings. The purpose of the subconscious mind existed to impart wisdom by providing answers to difficult situations in life. Through his research, Jung compiled a group of symbols, that he believed, exists in the unconscious mind of every human that related to generations and cultures.

In terms of personality, Jung believed everyone has a general attitude type, which determines how they behave. The two types of attitudes are introversion and extroversion, which are divergent but complementary. Along with an attitude, everyone has one of four functions to determine their personality type. The four functions are feeling, thinking, sensation, and intuition. Jung's theory was that there are eight different personality types. A person does not usually have just one personality type, but, a primary and secondary. Consequently, a person who attains self-realization completely develops all four functions.

Jung also believed that the psyche is composed of the ego, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious. The ego is the conscious mind. The personal unconscious is knowledge that is not currently conscious, but, is possible and able to relocate to the conscious mind. The collective unconscious is an inherited knowledge that we are born with, but, is impossible to relocate to the conscious mind. However, it does influence our personality. Also he theorized that people have within themselves a feminine and masculine dimension of their personalities. A balance is required between these two dimensions for a healthy mental status.

It is important to look at Jung's views of Analytical Psychology and the Unconscious Theory. His school of thought was called Analytic Psychology in which he believed that the unconscious influences personality. He described fears, behaviors, and thoughts as collective unconscious. Carl believed that archetypes formed the unconscious, which are inherited from ancestors. A few examples of archetypes are animus, anima, shadow, darkness, and self. The animus represents the male aspect that is present in the unconscious of the female. The anima represents the female aspect that is present in the unconscious of the male. Like Freud and Adler, he believed that people are bisexual but as the fetus develops, hormones decide the outcome of the gender. The self creates balance in people's lives through managing the other archetypes.

In his lifetime, Jung treated mostly adults in his psychiatric practice. In terms of children, he believed that the cause of neurosis in children was primarily caused by the parents and the method that the parents deal with their problems affects their children.

W. Crain (2003) stated this about Carl Jung, "Whereas Freud viewed the unconscious in terms of sexual and