Carl Jung's entire work
could be said to rest on two questions, "Who am I?" and "Who are we?" The depth
of his work and his investigation into these questions is I think, unsurpassed
in the Western World. Had he been born at a different time we would I believe
now have the religion of Jung, and yet that would probably go against his own
thinking. He recognised the danger of dogmas, the limitations on how far we can
rationally answer some questions and he fiercely defended truth, knowing that
truth is what you and I discover from our hearts and experience to be the truth,
not merely some dry rationalisation that comes from our "head".
Carl Jung found early
inspiration from Freud and his discoveries about the unconscious and for some
years both were close friends. However, he found Freud's belief that sexual
motivations were the root of all that was in the unconscious hard to take. He
recognised Freud as a person who had opened up new ground but as time went by he
also became more aware of the limitations to Freud's work. Freud saw Jung as his
likely successor but when Jung discovered Freud had a need to present his work
as dogma, as a "truth" which should not be questioned, he began to draw away.
The truth to Jung was far more important than any dogma and dogma's he
recognised were a way of silencing free thought and experience. In the early
part of his relationship with Freud, Jung did not feel he was sufficiently
developed to properly confront him but as he grew older and continued his study
of himself and his patients, he came to understand Freud more and more and to
see where Freud himself had unresolved issues. The parting of the ways came when
Jung asked Freud to give him more details in order that he might be able to
interpret one of Freud's dreams. Freud's reply that if he was to give this
information he might lose his authority saw the parting of the ways. Truth to
Jung, was far more important than
authority.
Carl Jung and Who Am I?
Jung's work came from
personal investigation into his own psyche and that of his patients, coupled
with an extensive study of civilisation, religion, myths, alchemy and astrology.
He believed that by analysing himself and his patients and studying the history
of human thought and experience, he could come to some understanding of who we
are. He noticed that the time he lived in was a time where the rational was
given almost total precedence over that of myth and he recognised, perhaps
somewhat uniquely for his time and especially his sex, that what was rational
was not always what was the truth. He fearlessly sought the truth,
Carl Jung, from the
beginning found himself not agreeing with Freud's belief that the basis of all
motivation was sex. He believed that the unconscious held far more than purely
personal and repressed base instincts. As with Freud, he worked tirelessly on
understanding dreams, both his own and that of his patients. Like Freud, he
believed that we have an Ego, which is the central agent for understanding all
that is conscious, everything which has ever been experienced by us and which
has been integrated into our understanding of ourselves. What people tend to
believe is who they are. Like Freud he also believed we have an unconscious
which consists of impulses we have repressed.
Jung's view of the
unconscious however went a great deal further. He believed we had a collective
unconscious as well as our own personal one. His concept of the collective
unconscious came from the premise that as we are all human, there must be some
concept of ourselves which is universally human. From his investigations into
alchemy, myths, legends and people of other religions, he was able to see with
great clarity the extent to which the culture in which we are born, conditions
our view of who we are. In Memories,
Dreams, Reflections, he describes his meeting with Pueblo Indians and their
discussion of the white man. "They say they think with their heads", said the
Indian, having just told Jung that they thought the white man was "mad". Jung
inquired what else could one think with and the Indian said. "We think Here"
indicating his heart. Jung said that in that moment he saw Western Civilisation
anew.
To Jung our Self was not our
ego. Our Self was not who we thought we were. Our Self rather was who we really
are, all of us, both the known and the unknown, the integrated and that which is
yet to be integrated. Our perception of ourselves is hence our ego, but our true
Self is a great deal more.
