THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

CHAPTER 4: JUNG – ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Carl Jung (1875-1961) –is a highly introspective child. He studied with Eugene Bleuler
(schizophrenia) and Pierre Janet (consciousness and hypnosis), met Freud in 1907 and had a 13-hr
conversation with him and disagreed with Freud about the nature of personality. Carl Jung’s theory is one
of the most intriguing and thought-provoking theories of personality.

JUNG’S ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY

Jung, like Freud, based his personality theory on the assumption that the mind, or psyche, has
both a conscious and an unconscious level. He strongly asserted that the most important portion of the
unconscious springs not from personal experiences of the individual but from the distant past of human
existence – the collective unconscious. Conscious and the personal unconscious are of lesser
importance.

Levels of the Psyche

1. Conscious
- conscious images are those that are sensed by the ego, whereas unconscious elements have no
relationship with the ego. Jung saw the ego as the center of consciousness, but not the core of
personality.

2. Personal Unconscious
- It contains contain repressed infantile memories and impulses, forgotten events, and experiences.
Formed by our individual experiences and is therefore unique to each of us, and contents of the personal
unconscious are called complexes.
Complex - largely personal, but they may also be partly derived from humanity’s collective experience.
3. Collective Unconscious

- consists of thoughts and images that are difficult to bring into awareness. Has roots in the ancestral past
of the entire species. Humans’ innate tendency to react in a particular way whenever their experiences
stimulate a biologically inherited response tendency

4. Archetypes – Primordial Images

a. Persona
- the side of personality on show to the world.
- one may lose touch with inner self and remain dependent on society’s expectations.
b. Shadow
- contains the unconscious part of ourselves that is essentially negative
- the evil side of humankind, well-adjusted people incorporate their good and evil parts into a
wholeness of self or otherwise we may project our evil thoughts on others. (projection)
c. Anima – the female side of the male.
d. Animus – the masculine side of the female.
e. Great Mother
– represents two opposing forces – fertility and nourishment, and the other hand power and
destruction
f. Wise Old Man
- Archetype of wisdom and meaning, symbolizes humans’ preexisting knowledge of the mysteries of
life
g. Hero
- powerful person, sometimes part god, who fights against great odds to conquer or vanquish evil in
the form of dragons, monsters, serpents, or demons
h. Self
- an inherited tendency to move towards growth, perfection, and completion
- symbolized by a person’s ideas of perfection, completion, and wholeness buts its ultimate symbol is
the mandala.
Mandala
- it represents the self striving toward wholeness.

Dynamics of Personality

1. Causality - holds that present events have their origin in previous experiences
2. Teleology - holds that present events are motivated by goals and aspirations for the future that directs
a person’s
destiny.
3. Synchronicity - a phenomenon in which events are related to one another through simultaneity and
meaning, may be due to transpersonal collective unconscious
4. Progression - involves a forward flow of energy needed to adapt to the outside world
5. Regression - adaptation to the inner world relies on a backward flow of energy; a necessary backward
step in the attainment of a goal
Psychological Types

1. Attitudes - a predisposition to act or react in a characteristic direction.

Introversion- turning inward of psychic energy with an orientation toward the subjective, turned to
their inner world with all its biases, fantasies, dreams and individual perceptions
Extraversion
- turning outward of psychic energy so that the person is oriented toward the objective, more
influenced by their surroundings than by their inner world

2. Functions
- both introversion and extraversion can combine with any one or more of four functions
Thinking – enables one to recognize meaning
Feeling - tells the value or worth of something
Sensation – tells people that something exists
Intuition - allows them to know about something without knowing how they know

Development of Personality

1. Stages of Development

a. Childhood - early morning sun; full of potential, but still lacking in

brilliance
Anarchic Phase
- chaotic and sporadic consciousness.
Monarchic Phase
- development of the ego and by the beginning of logical and verbal thinking.
Dualistic Phase
- refer to themselves in the first person and are aware of their existence as separate individuals.
the ego is divided into the objective and subjective.

b. Youth
- the morning sun; climbing toward the zenith, but unaware of the impending decline
Conservative Principle – desire to live in the past

c. Middle life
- brilliant like the late morning sun, but obviously headed for the sunset; begins at approximately age 35
or 40

d. Old age
- the evening sun; its once bright consciousness now markedly dimmed

2. Self-Realization- the process of becoming an individual or whole person

Individuation- fulfilling one’s own specific nature and realizing one’s uniqueness in one’s place
within the whole.
Transcendence - a deeper self or essence emerges to unite a person with all of humanity and the
universe at large.
Neurosis – results from a one-sided personality development.

Jung and Spirituality

Spirituality
- the search for meaning or for a power beyond the self rather than adherence to particular tenets,
as in a formal religion.

Jung’s Method of Investigation

1. Word Association Test- instructed the person with the first word that
came to mind.

2. Dream Analysis- dreams are our unconscious and spontaneous attempt to know the
unknowable.

3. Active Imagination - purpose is to reveal archetypal images emerging from the unconscious.

4. Psychotherapy
1st Stage: Confession of a pathogenic secret
2nd Stage: Interpretation, Explanation, and Elucidation –gives the patients insight into the
causes of their neuroses but may still leave them incapable of solving social problems.
3rd Stage: approach adopted by Adler and includes the education of patients as social beings
4th Stage: Transformation – therapist must first be transformed into a healthy human being,
preferably by undergoing psychotherapy.