Carl Jung Essay

Submitted By Marshaforbes
Words: 2052
Pages: 9

Carl Gustav Jung’s early life
Carl Gusatav Jung who was to become known as the founding father of analytical psychology was born on the 26th July 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland and died on the 6th June 1961. His father, Paul Achilles Jung was a church minister. His mother was Emilie Preiswerk and she was a Pagan. This gave Jung an opportunity early on to look at religion from different perspectives and opened the curiosity in his mind. He was the youngest of four children and all of them had passed away. Jung’s mother suffered from depression quite often, as she missed her family. Once they moved near to her people she was uplifted and became a happier person. Jung grew up alone without any siblings around him. He said that he was at his most ecstatic when he was left to his own devices and thoughts. Jung was a loner when he was growing up. He was extremely bright, but got bored easily and considered himself to be an introvert as it looked like he had a lack of interest in social relationships.
When Jung was 12 another child in his class pushed him to the ground and he banged his head and suffered and injury. He began to faint whenever he had to go to school or do homework. The doctors and his mother and father were convinced he had epilepsy. Jung heard his father putting his concerns forward that Jung will be useless and not able to work and provide for himself. This gave Jung the kick he needed and he began to start studying seriously and concentrate on his academics. The fainting did continue when he started studying again, but Jung managed to overcome the problem and the fainting stopped. This allowed Jung to return back to school. This unfortunate incident was Jung first experience with neurosis which he later mentioned and explained. Jung made a decision to study medicine, but while in school he also developed an interest in spiritual phenomena. It was this powerful attraction combination of his two interests, medicine and spirituality that led him into the field of psychiatry. In 1902, he graduated from University of Basel with a medical degree, after his doctoral dissertation, titled "On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena". He wed Emma Rauschenbach in 1903, but Jung was said to have affairs with other women, one of whom was a young Russian woman called Sabina Spielrein. She was his first patient at the Burgholzli Psychiatric Hospital. This went on for a few years until Jung broke it off because it was having a detrimental effect on his work.
Carl Gustav Jung’s later life
At the beginning of his career Jung worked with psychiatric patients at the University of Zürich asylum. He became friendly with Sigmund Freud in 1906 after sending him a copy of his writing:-“Studies in Word Association”. His time spent with Freud had a major impact on Jung’s later work and theories. This interaction with Freud helped Jung develop an intense interest for the unconscious mind. Jung interest was to increase his knowledge to further his personal interpretation of the human mind through myth, philosophy, dreams and art. In the beginning Freud saw Jung as his apprentice. Conflict arose when Jung offered alternative views to Freud. It came to a point where Jung finally divorced himself from Freudian Theories and rejected Freud’s special significance on sex as the sole source of behavior motivation. This self-analysis was the basis for Jung’s future theories.
He broke from psychodynamic theories and became more organized about his theoretical approach theories and developed his own theory called Analytical Psychology. The parting with Freud was frosty and Freud closed rank on all his followers. His friends as well as colleagues in the psychoanalytical community turned against him. Jung considered and explored his own subconscious and dreams in detail. He interpreted them to help understand himself. He recorded his experience in a previously unpublished book known as “The Red Book” and continued to write