Carl Gustav Jung Notes-Fall 2014
11/10/2014
At one point picked by Freud as his successor, but later rejected. Freud wanted authority over Jung, whereas Jung viewed Freud as a teacher and colleague. There were also differences in Jung’s and Freud’s theories. Jung traveled around the world studying numerous cultures and fluently spoke several languages. Focusing on the unit and diversity in all things, Jung was very open-minded, well-read, charismatic, as well as, being a great scholar. Some of his early research was devoted to cult-phenomenon and psychic mediums. Jung was an intuitive introvert and a dualist (meaning that the psyche could not be reduced to a purely biological model). At one point he had a“girlfriend” who lived with him and his wife. Jung wrote about the Nazis and the symbols they employed, but he was not a Nazi sympathizer as some accused him of being.
Jung popularized the archetypes.
Jung’s Model of the Psyche - Rychlak’s egg-model on the board diagrammed the following terms: Personae-masks, ego, alter-ego or shadow, conscious, unconscious, collective unconscious, personal complexes, and archetypes. Another model included the self-archetype actualized in the center of the psyche, which would occur when a person reaches the final stages of individuation.
Complex = constellation of memories, ideas, and thoughts that are held together by the “glue” of libido (In some of his writings Jung refers to complexes as “feeling-toned complexes”)
Libido = general psychological energy (not sexual as with Freud) The positive or negative “charge” of libido = emotional charge, “our emotional feel”
Ego = the midpoint of the conscious realm (sense of “true self”)
Alter-ego or personal shadow- opposite of the ego (opposition of light/dark in psyche)
Principle of opposites. Opposition is important in the psyche, and nature; ego and shadow are always in pairs; capable of doing both good and bad; must acknowledge the duality of the psyche; importance of balance -- avoid one-sidedness and always strive for a balanced life/for harmony.
Archetypes :in the collective unconscious; have to dig deep in the psyche; In some ways, the archetypes actually find you
1) Ultimately unknowable in their pure form, as they exist in the collective unconscious
2) Themes of humanity
3) A priori categories of functioning
4) The ultimate sense of meaning and purpose in life
5) Archetypes are universal
There is a shadow archetype as well. People can let themselves be “possessed” by their archetypal shadow as well as other archetypes (e.g., the anima)
Archetypessupply “meaning of life” – get to deepest sense of what it means to be a person
Sign – signifies something ex: Number 7 = 7 things
Symbol – symbolizes something ex: Number 7 = lucky number 7
4 is an important symbol of wholeness for Jung, it represents an integrated whole for Jung (L, R, Up, Down) – QUATERNITY, MANDELA
Jung thought Christianity failed to acknowledge God’s “dark side” with the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Jung wanted to add Lucifer or a similar dark symbol to the Trinity. Jung also considered the idea that Mary might balance out the Trinity in a psychological sense, even though Christians (including Catholics) do not consider her to be part of the Godhead.
Archetypes communicate through symbols – ARCHETYPE HANDOUT
11/12/2014
Watched video from Fr. Robert Barron on “The Lord of the Rings”
PrivatioBoni – privation of good; the lack of good = evil
Cardinal virtues: Prudence; Temperance; Justice; Fortitude.
Theological virtues: Faith; Hope; Love/Charity (your disposition toward the Creator); Jung would add Understanding, since the number four conveys wholeness.
Individuation – the ability to integrate all aspects of the psyche into a unified whole.
Suppression – active forgetting
During Jung’s midlife crisis, he retreats to his study to write “The Big Red Book.” In this book the Self is an archetype – completely balanced. Jesus is a symbol for the Self archetype. According to Jung, all religious experience comes from the collective unconscious and the archetypes (which are present prior to birth and in all peoples); religious experience is not from God on the outside, its inside, in the archetypes.
HANDOUT: LIST OF JUNGIAN ARCHETYPES (PARTIAL)
Anima - means soul (psyche) - archetype for femininity/individual woman with spiritual like qualities (blue = spirit for Jung)
Animus – archetype of masculinity – usually shows up in dreams in the form of several men/cold, logical, fact-focused (opposite of anima)
Numinous dream/experience – a simple dream or experience that is filled with libido and usually imparts wisdom, something meaningful – Maslow might call it a “Peak Experience”
Men often have dreams of Anima and women often have dreams of Animus.
11/17/2014
In a Jungian system you can only have suppression, not repression in the Freudian sense.
One-sidedness leads to “Personal Complex Formation” (or bad stuff)
Agglutination – is when complexes “glue together” in the personal unconscious. If you don’t deal with complexes, they “glue together” with other complexes and are expressed, usually in a negative way. Projection follows this process. All that we suppress will eventually come out. Jung attempted to explain midlife crisis – ex: Dr. Grice’s father crying and Jung’s own crisis and attempt to recover his soul (spirit) through the Big Red Book.
Projection – when something from the unconscious is projected onto something outside the person, usually another person (scapegoat – ex: Aaron…goat). The person projecting is not aware of the projection.
11/19/2014
Jung introduced the words – Introversion and Extraversion (both are measured by the MBTI)
Personal complexes form primarily through one-sidedness (suppression)
Principle of opposites – bipolarity
Assimilation – “take apart” a complex and integrate it into the psyche
Defeat a Complex:
1) Recognize that ego is not all of the psyche (be accountable, take ownership of your thoughts, choices, and actions)
2) Confess – must get it out; elucidate – look for patterns/think about it/own it; and educate –find other ways to deal with it and change it
3) Unlock creativity – sand box play; art therapy; dream interpretation
Numinous dream aka “Big Dream” – sense importance of it through emotion; probably an archetypal message
Dreams may have a simple prospective function = preparing for your day
Dreams may also have a balancing function = dream is there to try to balance the psyche – might be called “compensatory dream”
Left and water = unconscious; Right = conscious
Mystical experiences – one with everything; unified; death of ego, meaning the ego takes a back seat to the Self.
Depotentiation – taking away libido from a complex. Since libido is the glue that holds complexes together, you can then dismantle it once it is depotentiated. You destroy its potential to wreak havoc in your life.
12/1/2014 Video in class: Kung Fu – “One Step to Darkness” episode
(From Dr. Grice) Primary message was complex formation and how complexes are destructive in our lives. Cain fights his inner demon while helping another wounded soul fight hers. The demon is both personal and archetypal as it is seen by both Cain and the woman in the cave and it represents the “spirit of evil.” The scenes in the cave remove the demarcation line between reality and fantasy: as with the visions, and when the stalactites and stalagmites form, and when the woman suddenly disappears. The boundary between inner (psyche) and outer (material world) is thus blurred. Moreover, Cain battles the demon both physically and spiritually. Life is not just physical combat, but spiritual combat as well. To ignore this is to be one-sided and susceptible to psychological (spiritual) wounding from others and from the world. Recall how Cain often accused the drug dealer of taking advantage of human frailties (woundedness, as St. Thomas would call it). What are the frailties commonly exploited in America today by those seeking to make a profit or by those seeking power over others?
12/3/2014
Synchronicity – “a causal” connections (ex: have premonition and it comes true)
Aristotle’s Four Causes:
1) Material – prime matter; shapeless materiality
2) Formal – the “whatness” of something; patterning of the matter
3) Efficient – A- > B- > C- >; track things in time; cause and effect; billiard ball
4) Final (teleology) – purpose (invoke time again)
Jung liked balance and was a “final cause kind of thinker.”
Jung enlisted the help of physicist Wolfgang Pauli to try to rationalize the experiences of “synchronicity”
Jung tries to ground things in nature.
Discussed MBTI that student completed online and submitted in class today.