”The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”…
In part I of this blog, we discussed the origins of the term individuation and its development as a central idea in the psychology of C.G. Jung. Having explored where Jung acquired the idea, we can arrive at a more lucid interpretation of its psychological meaning. We also suggested that…
In previous blogs, we have discussed some of the most notable ideas put forward by the psychologist C.G. Jung, which include typology, complexes, the psyche, archetypes, the soul-image, the unconscious, the ego, the shadow, the persona, the symbol, and the self. Given what we have heretofore reviewed, let us turn…
In analytical psychology, the symbol plays an important role in the development of the personality. C.G. Jung (1921/1971) suggests that a symbol “is the best possible expression for something that cannot be expressed otherwise than by a more or less close analogy” (CW6, para. 93, n. 44). Elsewhere, Jung writes…
As discussed in a previous blog, the ego consists of the personal center of the psyche, however, C.G. Jung (Figure 1) conjectured the existence of another psychic center, a transpersonal one, which extends far beyond the ego’s sphere of influence. Jung called this transpersonal center the self, which not only…
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” In the early 1930s, the fictional character The Shadow appeared in a detective magazine of the same name. The pulp magazine revolved around a mysterious nocturnal crime-fighter. The character evolved into a vigilante figure with anti-hero qualities….
People throw around the term ego all the time. The word is often associated with selfishness or overconfidence. An egotistic person, for instance, is considered brash, pompous, and overly boastful. We have all heard the cliché: “Your ego is writing is writing checks that your body cannot cash”. So the term,…
Another key idea in Jung’s psychology is the persona. In Latin, the term refers to the mask of an actor, and Jung viewed this word as a descriptor apropos of his concept. After all, social conventions and cultural demands require that we all don a mask from time to time…
As discussed in a previous blog, an archetype is an organizer of the psychic experience and what it yields is a pattern of psychic functioning. Jung’s concepts of anima and animus (i.e., syzygy) are two of the most important and too often misunderstood archetypes in the Jungian lexicon. Thus, further…
