Jung's Archetypes
...He was named after his grandfather, a professor of medicine at the University of Basel. He was the oldest child and only surviving son of a Swiss Reform pastor. Carl attended the University of Basel and decided to go into the field of psychiatry after reading a book that caught his interest.
Jung became an assistant at the Burgholzli Mental Hospital located in Zurich. He studied under, and was influenced by Eugen Bleuler, a famous psychiatrist who defined schizophrenia. Freud, with whom he later became good friends, also influenced Jung. Their relationship ended when Jung wrote a book called "Symbols of Transformation." Jung disagreed with Freud's fundamental idea that a symbol is a disguised representation of a repressed wish (Heaney, 1994). After splitting up with Freud, Jung had a two year period of non-productivity, but then he came out with his "Psychological Types," a famous work. He went on several trips to learn about primitive societies and archetypes. His explorations included trips to Africa, New Mexico to study Pueblo Indians, and to India and Ceylon to study eastern philosophy. He studied religious and occult beliefs like I Ching, a Chinese method of fortune telling. Alchemy became one of his interests during his journeys. His book, "Psychology and Alchemy," published in 1944, is among his most important writings. In this study, he told about the human mind. One of his methods was word association. This is when a person is given a series of words and asked to respond to them. Abnormal response or hesitation can mean that the person has a complex about that word. His basic belief was in complex or analytical psychology. The goal is psycho synthesis, or the unification and differentiation of the psyche (mind). He believed that the mind started out as a whole and should stay that way. That answered structural, dynamic, developmental questions....
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