Page 24 - History of Psychology

Psychoanalysis

Carl G. Jung & Alfred Adler

Carl G. Jung

Born in the Swiss village of Kesswil, Carl Jung (1875 - 1961). Jung studied medicine
at Basel and then worked as a resident under Eugen Bleuler (who coined the term
schizophrenia). After reading the book The Interpretation of Dreams, Jung began to
correspond with Freud and finally met in 1907. Together with Adler, Jung
accompanied Freud to America and began to introduce his work to the American
public. Jung began to apply psychoanalytic thinking to ancient myths and legends
in an attempt to discover the key characteristics of the human psyche. However,

Freud did not agree with this thought and there was tension between the two. It was
not until 1911 that Freud gave Jung the office of the first president of the
International Psychoanalytic Association, but tensions between the two could not
be reconciled, and in 1914 Jung resigned from the association and severed ties with
Freud.

The major source of theoretical difficulty between Freud and Jung was the nature
of the libido. At the time of his association with Jung, Freud defined libido as
"sexual energy", which he saw as the main driving force of personality. Jung
disagreed, saying that libidinal energy is a creative life force that could be applied
to the individual's continuous psychological growth. According to Jung, the goal of
life is to reach self-actualization, which involves the harmonious blending of all
aspects of the personality manifesting themselves within the context of a particular
person's life is called individuation.

The Personal and Collective Unconscious
Jung, like Freud, believed that the main purpose of personality is to strike a balance
between the forces of consciousness and unconsciousness in the personality. Jung
described two sources of unconscious power, one of which is that the personal
unconscious consists of repressed or forgotten experiences and is equal to the
level of Freud's preconscious. The contents of the personal unconscious can be
accessed by full awareness, this personal unconscious consists of complexes which
are groups with certain feeling themes that cause aberrant behavioral responses.
Another source of unconscious power, which is unique to Jung's theory, is the
collective unconscious. A more powerful energy source that has the same innate
content as all members of an ethnic or racial group. The collective unconscious has
an archetype which is defined as a primordial image that develops from the specific
experiences and attitudes of primitive tribal ancestors that are passed down from
generation to generation.
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