Carl Gustav Jung - Primer of Jungian Psychology

Carl Gustav Jung - Primer of Jungian Psychology

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a son of a minister in Switzerland. He

was born on July 26, in the small village of Kesswil on Lake Constance. 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. Two brothers died in infancy before Jung was born. Jung's mother

was a neurotic and often fought with his father. Father was usually lonely

and very irritable. When the child could not take his mother's depressions

and his parents' fights, he sought refuge in the attic, where he played

with a wooden mannikin. Carl was exposed to death early in life, since his

father was a minister and attended many funerals, taking his son with him.

Also, Jung saw many fishermen get killed in the waterfalls and also many

pigs get slaughtered. When he was eleven, he went to a school in Basel, met

many rich people and realized that he was poor, compared to them. He liked

to read very much outside of class and detested math and physical education

classes. Actually, gym class used to give him fainting spells (neurosis)

and his father worried that Jung wouldn't make a good living because of his

spells. After Carl found out about his father's concern, the faints

suddenly stopped, and Carl became much more studious.

He had to decide his profession. His choices included archeology,

history, medicine, and philosophy. He decided to go into medicine, partly

because of his grandfather. Carl went to the University of Basel and had

to decide then what field of medicine he was going to go into. After

reading a book on psychiatry, he decided that this was the field for him,

although psychiatry was not a respectable field at the time. Jung became

an assistant at the Burgholzli Mental hospital in Zurich, a famous medical

hospital. He studied under Eugen Bleuler, who was a famous psychiatrist

who defined schizophrenia. Jung was also influenced by Freud with whom he

later became good friends. Freud called him his crown-prince. 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. I will go into that

later. After splitting up with Freud, Jung had a 2 year period of non-

productivity, but then he came out with his "Psychological Types," a famous