Carl Jung (1875-1961)

Early Life

Carl Gustav Jung was born in 1875 to Emilie Preiswerk and Paul Jung, a Swiss Pastor, in Kesswil, Switzerland. He was raised in Basel and attended school in Klein-Huningen. Jung continued his education at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, and excelled at Latin. Because of his father’s faith, Jung developed a keen interest in religious history, but settled on the study of medicine at the University of Basel. He earned his medical degree in 1902 from the University of Zurich and went Paris to study psychology. Jung entered the field of psychiatry as an intern to Eugen Bleuler at the University of Zurich where he explored the unconscious mind and its related complexes.

Professional Life

His relationship with Sigmund Freud began with his Studies in Word Association, a book that he published in 1906 and sent to Freud. Their friendship lasted until 1913, at which time they parted ways due to a difference in academic opinion. Jung agreed with Freud’s theory of the unconscious, but believed further in the existence of a deeper collective unconscious and representative archetypes. This fundamental difference caused their friendship and psychological views to diverge.
   

Jung was drafted into World War I and served as an army doctor for the British. In 1903, Jung married Emma Rauschenbach, with whom he had five children. Jung traveled throughout the world to teach and influence others with his psychoanalytical theories. He published many books relating to psychology, and others that seemed outside the realm science, including Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies, which examined and dissected the psychological significance of UFO sightings. Jung’s work embodied his belief that each person has a life purpose that is based in their spiritual self. Through his eastern, western and mythological studies, Jung developed a theory of transformation which he called individuation. He believed this journey is one in which a person finds himself and also the Divine being. He further pursued and explored the idea of individuation in Psychology and Alchemy, a book in which he detailed the relationship of alchemies in the psychoanalytical process.

Contribution to Psychology

Carl Jung is recognized as one of the most influential psychiatrists of all time. He founded Analytical Psychology and was among the first experts in his field to explore the religious nature behind human psychology. He developed the concept of the complex and identified the parallel roles of extraversion and introversion. He deepened the meaning of the unconscious by stating the existence of the collective unconscious and all of its archetypes. His theories and works influenced the modern form of synchronicity as a type of relationship, and his ideas are at the foundation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Socionics. Additionally, the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous were in part inspired by Jung’s belief in an evangelic cure for alcoholism. His works, theories, and schools of thought are widely discussed in universities and psychology curriculums around the world.

Books by Carl Jung

• Psychology of the Unconscious (1912)
• Psychological Types (1921)
  
• The Undiscovered Self (1958)
  
• Man and His Symbols (1968)
  
• The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious (with R. Hull, 1981) 
• The Red Book (with Sonu Shamdasani, 2009)