Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychotherapist, is known in the psychology community as the founder of analytical psychology. A contemporary of Sigmund Freud, he exchanged correspondence and ideas with the Austrian, eventually drifting apart due to some conceptual differences (while Freud focused his ideas on sexuality, Jung believed in the significance of spiritual phenomena). Thus, Jung developed original concepts and opened new perspectives on understanding the human mind, emerging from Freud’s shadow with ideas such as archetypes and the collective unconscious.
Analytical psychology is a branch of psychology that delves deeper into the human mind, particularly the conscious and unconscious aspects, as well as the relevance of the past and traumas in an individual’s behavior. Building on Freud’s work with sexual concepts and psychoanalysis, it was Carl Jung who took the initial steps in this emerging and somewhat controversial field of study. Starting with the concept of a “complex,” Jung understood it as a group of unconscious ideas associated with events or experiences that possess intense psychic activity. Regularly triggered by interactions with others, emotions and mental images increase in intensity and temporal extension depending on the depth and size of the complex. For example, a particular piece of music can evoke a memory involving someone, and this individual can also come to mind through an object or another person that reminds us of the initial connection.
A child’s view (…) will awaken certain longings in adult and civilized individuals – longings that relate to unfulfilled desires and needs of those parts of the personality that have been erased from their ‘whole picture’ in favor of the adapted ‘persona..
“Memories, Dreams, Reflections” (1962)
Considering the unconsciousness of the complex, one can establish a bridge to a much broader and deeper notion. Jung studied the existence of a collective unconscious, which consists of a common material and immaterial inheritance shared by all human beings. This complements the personal unconscious, regularly manifesting in dreams through both familiar and unfamiliar forms, with this familiarity associated with the individual unconscious. This inheritance of the collective unconscious includes archetypes, which are essentially the first (and often ancient) impressions about various details of the world that manifest in different aspects of life and, due to their repetition over centuries, are referred to as “primordial images.” The psychologist is primarily known for this conceptualization because it forms the foundation of his entire psychological framework. Examples of these archetypes include the wise old man, the hero, the villain, the strong man, and the sensual woman. Despite their timelessness, these concepts undergo metamorphosis as they adapt to different spatiotemporal contexts.
Within the realm of archetypes, Carl Jung also studied and defined the concept of the “shadow,” which represents the darker and more grotesque aspects of the human psyche. To him, the shadow is a product of an inheritance from primitive forms of life that have always been part of human identity. It contains impulses that, in a social context, are considered immoral, inappropriate, and suppressible, and, like these impulses, it gives rise to their projection onto a third party, viewing them as an example not to follow. However, the shadow also contains the most spontaneous and emotional aspects, and each individual’s mission is to illuminate their own shadow as much as possible and work on it from the inside out, harnessing the virtues it provides.
In the first pair of concepts that branch from an individual’s gender, the psychologist delves into more specific aspects of the unconscious, specifically those of man and woman. While a man possesses an inner feminine personality known as the “Anima,” a woman has an inner masculine personality called the “Animus.”
The first notion encompasses a gentle and tender perspective in which flexibility, tolerance, intuition, and emotion gain significant importance. The second notion, on the other hand, embraces reason, logic, activity, conflict, and dynamism, pointing toward robustness and vigor. Thus, the Swiss psychologist advocated that each human being holds a complete self within, which is incessantly sought after in the proportions of the figure of destiny and requires a process of self-discovery. Happiness and completeness for a human being are consequently understood as the unification of the innate character with the associated traits related to masculinity or femininity and the harmonization of the self.
Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end.
“Man and His Symbols” (1964)
Returning to the uniqueness of each individual, Carl Jung analyzed the process of individuation, which connects the infantile state of identification to a state of expanded consciousness and the emergence of definitive differentiation. In this dynamic, there is a relationship between each individual’s innate elements and their experiences, forming an integrated self where distinction becomes inevitable. Here, the human being’s affection for their intrinsic personality and the energetic potential emanating from it (the archetype of the Self) also occurs. The Self encompasses and harmonizes the desires and instincts arising from the unconscious, functioning as a stabilizing repository and the core of the psyche. This is why the primary manifestation of the Self revolves around instinctive expression, which has the particularity of being inseparable from the mentioned Self.
Beyond purely mental themes, Jung addressed synchronicity applied to a relationship between events, understanding it as the occurrence of two or more events where a meaningful coincidence takes place for the individuals involved. This concept differs from mere coincidence because randomness is a necessary but not sufficient condition; it also requires a pattern that compiles significant aspects for an individual. This pattern can take on the form of an archetype and may even be part of the collective unconscious mentioned earlier.
In a comparative perspective with the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, there are several traits that set their approaches apart. Freud names vital energy as libido, which materializes through instincts, while Jung believes it is the psyche and associated archetypes that trigger this manifestation. Both acknowledge the existence of conflicts that destabilize an individual’s harmony, but while Freud perceives this as a clash between instincts, Jung identifies the cause as the denial of the psyche. In personal development, while Jung remains connected to archetypes, Freud follows the psychosexual line of thought, with an individual’s development beginning with the earliest manifestations of infantile sexuality. Even in the interpretation of dreams, there is a difference in approach: Freud associates freely and symbolically but attributes dreams a meaning that reveals the dreamer’s deepest and most visceral traumas and desires. On the other hand, Carl Jung, while also exploring dreams through their symbolism, studies their purpose rather than their causes, aiming to understand their relation to cultural traits and their contrast with an individual’s daily life. Regarding the ultimate purpose of life, Sigmund does not delve into spirituality as Jung does, who sees spiritual transcendence of consciousness as the goal to achieve. Freud defines life’s ultimate goal as the pursuit of something that provides completeness and is in communion with his fragile mental structure.
In summary, it is crucial to understand Carl Jung’s perspective on personality theory as it interconnects many of the concepts discussed. Termed by him as the psyche, Jung viewed it as a dynamic interplay of isolated systems acting upon one another. Some of these systems include the ego, individual and collective unconscious, and the aforementioned archetypes, all anchored in the Self. Beyond the mechanisms of the unconscious associated with the formation of the psyche, there exists the ego. The ego defines an individual’s identity and temporality, supported by perceptions, memories, and emotions stored in consciousness. It is the symbiosis of these two worlds that formulates and gives rise to the theory of “psychic geography.” Carl Gustav Jung was the man who initiated the approach to analytical psychology, a branch destined to better understand humanity, its foundations, defining lines, and the dimensions of its complexity. Jung allowed the light to shine on conundrums that dominated psychological studies for decades and centuries. Allied with Freud, he created lines of interpretation for the incomprehensible. After all, psychology also performs miracles.