martes, 24 de julio de 2012

Carl Jung, July 26, 1875 - June 6, 1961July 26, biography first part.




Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of a neopsychoanalytic school of psychology, which he
named Analytical Psychology.
Jung's unique and broadly influential approach to psychology has emphasized understanding the psyche
through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Although he was
a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician for most of his life, much of his life's work was spent
exploring other realms, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as
well as literature and the arts.
His most notable contributions include his concept of the psychological archetype, his theory of
synchronicity and the collective unconscious - also known as "a reservoir of the experiences of our
species."
Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern humans rely too
heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of the
unconscious realm. Jungian ideas are not typically included in curriculum of most major universities'
psychology departments, but are occasionally explored in humanities departments.
Early Life
Jung was the son of a philologist and paster. His childhood was lonely, though enriched by a vivid
imagination. From an early age he observed the behavior of his parents and teachers, which he tired to
understand and resolve. Especially concerned with his father's failing belief in religion, he tried to
communicate to him his own experience of God. Though the elder Jung was in many ways a kind and
tolerant man, neither he nor his son succeeded in understanding each other.
A very solitary and introverted child, Jung was convinced from childhood that he had two personalities, a
modern Swiss citizen, and a personality more at home in the eighteenth century. "Personality No. 1," as
he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time, while No. 2 was a dignified,
authoritative, and influential man from the past. Although Jung was close to both parents, he was rather
disappointed in his father's academic approach to faith.
A number of childhood memories inspired many of his later theories. As a boy he carved a tiny
mannequin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pupil's pencil case and placed it inside the case. He
then added a stone which he had painted into upper and lower halves of, and hid the case in the attic.
Periodically he would come back to the manikin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with messages
inscribed on them in his own secret language. This ceremonial act, he later reflected, brought him a
feeling of inner peace and security. In later years, he discovered that similarities existed in this memory
and the totems of native peoples like the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim, or the tjurungas of
Australia. This, he concluded, was an unconscious ritual that he did not question or understand at the
time, but was practiced in a strikingly similar way in faraway locations that he as a young boy had no
way of consciously knowing about. His theories of psychological archetypes and the collective
unconscious were inspired in part by this experience.
Shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, at age 12, he was
pushed unexpectedly by another boy, which knocked him to the ground so hard that he was for a
moment unconscious. The thought then came to him that "now you won't have to go to school any
more.". From then on, whenever he started off to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at
home for the next six months until he overheard his father speaking worriedly to a visitor of his future
ability to support himself, as they suspected he had epilepsy. With little money in the family, this
brought the boy to reality and he realized the need for academic excellence. He immediately went into
his father's study and began poring over Latin grammar. He fainted three times, but eventually he
overcame the urge and did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, "was when I learned what a
neurosis is.

Adolescence and Early Adulthood
Jung wanted to study archaeology at university, but his family was not wealthy enough to send him
further afield than Basel, where they did not teach this subject, so instead Jung studied medicine at the
University of Basel from 1894 to 1900. The formerly introverted student became much more lively here.
In 1903, Jung married Emma Rauschenbach, from one of the richest families in Switzerland.
Towards the end of studies, his reading of Krafft-Ebing persuaded him to specialize in psychiatric
medicine. He later worked in the Burghölzli, a psychiatric hospital in Zürich. In 1906, he published
Studies in Word Association, and later sent a copy of this book to famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud,
after which a close friendship between these two men followed for some 6 years.
In 1913 Jung published Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (known in English as The Psychology of
the Unconscious) resulting in a theoretical divergence between Jung and Freud and result in a break in
their friendship, both stating that the other was unable to admit he could possibly be wrong. After this
falling-out, Jung went through a pivotal and difficult psychological transformation, which was
exacerbated by news of the First World War. Henri Ellenberger called Jung's experience a "creative
illness" and compared it to Freud's period of what he called neurasthenia and hysteria.

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