| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Books |
| Genre: | Science |
| Author: | Carl G. Jung, editor Aniela Jaffe. |
This book is a near-autobiography of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the second leading psychiatric figure after Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Many of the chapters were written by Jung himself in the last years of his life, some are taken from interviews be gave to and lectures he had previously given. Jung invented or helped popularize many terms in psychology --introvert, extrovert, synchronicity (a meaningful coincidence), persona (''that which in reality one is not, but which itself as well as others think one is") , archetype (that myths and fairy-tails in world literature contain definite motifs which crop up everywhere) and "the collective unconscious", a concept that would lead to Jung's lifelong quest to study and travel in close anthropological study to try and get the tools he needed to expand human understanding and not only help patients directly but also to bring forth an understanding of the subconscious to further advance the general understanding of the essential role this consciousness is a by-product of a force greater than nature. Jung was not by any stretch a conventionally religious man, but he was a deeply spiritual person none the less.
Originally, while working as a young doctor in a mental institution in Switzerland, Jung became interested in Freud's research. The two men met, traveled to America togerther , and shared ideas. For a time the younger man deferred to the great pioneer of psychoanalysis. For better or worse, Freud could only maintain a professional and personal association with Jung if he retained his authority. But he also badly wanted Jung for a disciple to promote the cause of psychoanalysis as a true science at a time--roughly the first decade of the 20th Century--which it was meeting great resistance.
This authority issue was something that chafed at Jung, who had his own ideas about the source of neurosis and more serious mental dysfunction. It was a clash of great minds and their stubborn egos to be sure. Freud placed a great emphasis on latent sexuality as the source for understanding the human mind--Jung was less convinced this was the key to unlocking the Unconscious and interpreting dreams and the stated fears of patients.
After some dramatic confrontations--two of which ended with Freud suffering a fainting fit after Jung brought up rather morbid subjects the latter man apparently thought was a wish-fulfillment to see him dead. The men went their separate ways. Jung devotes an entire chapter to the problematic relationship with the great scientific pioneer.
"In retrospect I can say that I alone logically pursued the two problems which most interested Freud: the problem of "archaic vestiges" and that of sexuality. It is a widespread error to imagine that I do not see the value of sexuality. On the contrary it plays a large part in my psychology as an essential--though not the sole--expression of psychic wholeness...Like an Old Testament prophet he (Freud) undertook to overthrow false gods, to rip the veils away from a mass of dishonesty and hypocrisies...he did not falter in the face of of the unpopularity the enterprise entailed." Jung called sexuality "the dark side of the God-image." (page 198-199)
Indeed Jung was fascinated with religious expressions and seeing the same in a generally positive light, an opinion which Freud must have found distasteful. Many modern atheists like Sam Harris (author of "The End of Faith") blame Jung in part for the continuance of religious respectability in some scientific quarters.
But Jung seems not to be a man constrained by any one culture or creed. He struck out on his own into varying directions, studying the Renaissance alchemists and delving into the culture of the East African Masai--while attending a native "N'goma" he gets so entranced he fears he may "go black"--to the Pueblo Native-American Sun Worshippers of New Mexico, and journeys to India in the late 1930's to meet Hindu and Buddhist mystics. It is the "Travels" portion of the book that we get the most personal glimpses of Jung and how he sought to tear himself apart from his comfortable European environment to gain greater knowledge of the human soul and unlock the meanings that would release us from parts of our fears about existence itself.
Having not read much about Jung, I was very taken with this book as a more "comfortable" way of delving into his life-long work. It's a book I'm sure to return to.
A reviewer on Amazon put it quite well:
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I recommend this book for people who have never read Jung before. It teaches more about his approach than any of his other books. It finds the meaning in his own life, viewed through his approach to life. "Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore the equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable--perhaps everything."
***************** From a BBC Documentary, late 1950's:
I read it years ago as I had a friend very interested in this stuff and I liked it at the time. I much prefer Jung's more positive approach to psychoanalysis than Freud's obsession with sexuality (especially the penis envy thing). However as a Sociology major, I have trouble with psychology as a discipline, I see it as lacking in context and pathological. This was a good book though all the same.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the preference of Jung generally over what I understand of Freud, some of the latter man's famous concepts being a bit overly-patriarchic, to say the least.
ReplyDeleteI had only read some basic textbook stuff on Dr. Jung--I was a political science major--and, much later, "Man and HIs Symbols" for which he contributed the main chapter. This book was much more "user-friendly" for me.
An interesting account of Jung and the principles of his analytic psychology. I think he was an interesting character as were all of the pioneers of psychodynamics including Freud, Adler and later Reich and Fromm.
ReplyDeleteI think all of these thinkers made a contribution to our understanding of middle class white society, but of course they were all human and all had flaws. Jung as the only gentile in the psychoanalytic circle in Vienna and this is important I think in understanding where he was coming from. He is typically Germanic in his interest in mythologies, arcane other worlds and occult phenomena. This teutonic zeitgeist led Jung into a rather dubious relationship with the Nazis who had similar interests. This relationship was a double edged sword, on the one hand it helped protect psychoanalysis somewhat from being castigated as purely a Jewish conspiracy, Jung clearly was not anti-semitic.
On the other hand the journal he edited did recommend Mein Kampf as essential reading and he was president of the Nazi inspired and founded International General Medical Society for Psychotherapy.
Jung's early interests were in archaeology and this I think is evident in his later work, he was essentially an archaeologist of the mind.
His psychology is focused upon later life and creating meaning rather than childhood fixated theories of Freud, Jung set about creating a fully adult version of psychoanalysis. Jung himself said that his form of psychotherpeutic intervention was only suitable for one third of (middle class white neurotic) patients and the other two thirds would do better with Freud or Adler.
Jung is typical of a current in German speaking Europe at that time which took him to Africa in 1925... a search for primordial archaeology of the psyche in primitive societies...the same impulses can be seen in Hermann Hesse, a friend and confidant and the Nazi obsession with Tibet and it's apparent 'secrets' and symbolisms.
Jung set analytic psychology on a spiritual path breaking with the scientific pretensions of psychoanalysis and turning it's theories into a quasi-religion particularly in America. In Europe Jung's reception was mixed, James Joyce for example detested him and parodied him in both 'Finnegan's Wake' and 'Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man'.
Jung has become something of a guru in private psychotherapy circles which is fine so long as the limitations are recognised, his spiritualised psychology collided head on with existential humanism in post-war Europe and should I think be viewed in that context. A great review here Doug, thanks for posting it.
There's a lot of interesting material you cover in your response, AA. The whole "Nazi archeology" movement (with its Godfather, Gustaf Kossinia, and his cultural theories laying the groundwork ) would be worthy of more study on my part before I could say anything serious about it. (I did see "Raiders of the Lost Ark" :-)
ReplyDeleteThe Germans certainly have their heroes in archeology, going back to the remarkable Heinrich Schliemann.
Jung was not a part of this racial movement, but I gather there is some concern on his historical resume about his accommodation of German scientists and certain scientific journals published in Germany during the Third Reich Era. Luckily the good doctor was Swiss so his character was not tested as far as other thinkers like Heidegger. I see from Wikipedia that Jung had to address this issue of anti-semitism and Nazi linkages after the war and it left a taint on his reputation.
Regarding James Joyce, it appears a relative of his was treated by Jung and was not able to be saved from confinement, which might explain a good part of Joyce's enmity.