| 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:
