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Carl
Jung
is best known for his ground-breaking
work in the field of psychiatry and mental
health and his affiliation with Simund
Freud. Although he and Freud worked together
for a time, Jung later disassociated himself
from Freud and published his own theories
in a series of books. While Jung is generally
thought to have created the ideas of introvert
and extrovert, he also focused on "analytical
psychology" and the "collective
unconsciousness", some of which he
discussed in his most famous works Psychology
and Religion, The Psychology of the Unconscious,
and Memoirs, Dreams, and Reflections.
Carl
Gustav Jung was born on July 26, 1875
in Kesswil, Switzerland to Paul Achilles
Jung and Emilie Preiswerk. His father,
a parson for the Swiss Reformed Church,
and his mother, a member of a wealthy
family, did not have a happy marriage
and shortly after moving to Laufen for
Paul's work, Emilie was sent to a hospital
in Basel for treatment of what was later
diagnosed as a depressive disorder. Her
absence, combined with her mood swings,
gave young Jung the impression that all
women were psychologically unreliable,
a notion he carried with him through his
adult life.
Due
to his wife's continued bouts of strange
illness, Paul requested a transfer and
moved the family to Kleinhuningen in 1879
to be closer to Emilie's family. The move
lightened her mood and the overall atmosphere
of Jung's home. It was during this time
that Jung developed his belief that he
was actually a combination of an old spirit
from the previous century and the modern
boy he saw in the mirror. As a tribute
to his beliefs, he painted a stone that
he kept in the attic and wrote messages
in secret languages in tribute to his
beliefs. In his later travels and studies
of foreign places and different religions,
Jung realized the significance of his
acts and the parallels between his stone
and the spiritual rituals of civilizations
around the world. The surprising similarities
resulted in Jung's development of the
idea of a collective unconscious.
At
the age of 12, Carl Jung was pushed by
a boy and momentarily went unconscious.
As a natural introvert, Jung's response
was to believe in that moment that he
would no longer have to attend school.
As a result, over the next six months,
Jung would automatically faint when urged
back to school or studies. During one
of these instances, Jung overheard his
father worry about Jung's future and his
ability to support himself. After that,
Jung was able to overcome his fainting
spells and eventually realized he had
developed a neurosis.
Although
Jung really wanted to study archeology,
his family could not afford to send him
away to a large university so, instead,
Jung settled on studying medicine at the
University of Basel. He graduated in 1900
and married his wife, Emma Rauschenbach,
in 1903.
After
his studies, Jung worked at a psychiatric
hospital in Zurich and published his first
book, Studies in Word Association in 1906.
Jung sent a copy of this book to the renowned
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud which marked
the beginning of a six-year friendship
between the two men. Despite early mutual
admirations, their friendship disintegrated
in 1913 when Carl Gustav Jung published
The Psychology of the Unconscious. The
book detailed Jung's beliefs with which
Freud disagreed. Neither could admit being
wrong and they parted ways.
After
the end of World War I, Jung travelled
all over the world, studying cultures,
giving lectures, and eventually discovering
the intricacies of Eastern religion. It
was during his involvement with Eastern
philosophies that Jung developed an appreciation
for spirituality and the greater unconscious.
Jung began focusing his later work on
the idea that the purpose of the individual
was to discover and fulfill innate potential.
He began incorporating this belief into
his scientific knowledge and derived at
the conclusion that all religions are
based on the journey inward to discover
self and the divine.
CG
Jung died in Zurich, Switzerland in 1961.
He had five children with his wife Emma
over the course of their lives.
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