CARL JUNG (1875 – 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist who studied under Sigmund Freud, but later rejected Freud’s teachings on dreams and neuroses by deviating into his own separate theories on the subject of the unconscious.

 

I have been interested in psychology since I was about 12 years old, due to the personal and controversial issues surrounding electro-shock therapy being performed on a close relative at that time. Then, I merely read the regurgitated presentations of standard psychology available in textbook-type publications.

 

It wasn’t until I listened to the Police's album, Synchronicity, that I developed an interest in CARL JUNG. This was, of course, before the onset of the internet revolution. Intrigued by the concept of synchronicity, I would trek to the library and bring home the black-bound books of the Collected Works of Carl Jung, which included:

 

• Psychology of the Unconscious – whereby he established the concept that symbolic meaning and purpose behind a given set of symptoms, places them within a larger context of the psyche.

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• Mysterium Coniunctionis - regarding the synthesis of the opposites in alchemy and psychology.

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• Aion – which explores the ego, the shadow, and the anima and animus.

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This, of course, is not a complete list of CARL JUNG’s numerous works, but it will get you started if you are interested in looking further into his publications.

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I am particularly interested in his theories on the collective unconscious as related to the personal psychological complexes which surface within an individual and how they influence our social structure. Jung’s approach to psychoanalysis was targeted toward the individuation of a person in an effort to delve into their psychic landscape in order to release the maladaptive behaviors that have rooted in the subconscious. Instead of shifting the blame of an individual psychosis upon isolated actions, he determined that the “species memory” was present in us all through the collective unconscious.

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It is my position that certain individuals display a radical psychosis as a matter of their “failure” to integrate into the “acceptable norms” placed upon us through social laws, morals and religious ideologies.

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(In Memory of Beverly)

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