Diverging Paths: Freud and Jung's Dissimilarities in Psychology

Both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung are famous psychologists that focused on personality. These two men have defined and shaped psychology. In the beginning, Freud and Jung had a deep friendship and shared many ideas. After thirteen long years of working together, Jung developed several new theories and starts to disagree with Freud in certain areas in the field of psychology. Later, they have begun to develop their own individual ideas and drop their friendship. The three specific areas that Jung disagrees with Freud on being the unconscious mind, the role of sexuality and the subject of dreams.

Freud and Jung each had an important attitude on the subject of the unconscious mind. In the early days they generally agreed with each other. Then,

He states the mind is like a storehouse for bottled-up desires particular to the individual (McLeish, 1). This storehouse collected unknown and out of sight wishes. On the other hand, “Jung saw the unconscious as a source of spiritual insight, like Freud, he saw this part of the mind as a storehouse but for past memories only” (McLeish, 1). Jung believed it was where memories from an earlier time stayed. He insists that, “when minds are active and awake, they alternate between taking in information and making decisions” (Kimmelam, 23). Unlike Freud, Jung believes each individual feels most comfortable either an introversion or extroversion, although people alternate between both, each person prefer one over the other (Kimmelam, 23). According to Briggs, “Introversion is energy moving toward the inner world of thoughts and ideas; extroversion is energy moving toward the outer world of people, places and things (Briggs, Mbti handout). Jung believes that the way people present themselves to the world was a foundational aspect of their personality (McLeish, 1). He observes how people express themselves. According to Jung, “until you make your unconscious conscious, it will control your life and you will call it fate” (Braden, 1). Jung is insisting that until a person becomes aware, they will have

Many believe, “dreams are a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur in the mind during certain stages of sleep” (Braden, 1). According to Freud, he claims that dreams are a series of events and images that are perceived through the mind during sleep (McLeish, 2). He said, “If you want to learn about an individual you could do so by interpreting their dreams” (McLeish, 5). For instance, Freud thinks a person expresses themselves through their dreams. Unlike Freud, “Jung’s depiction of dreams concentrated on symbolic imagery” (Jacobson, 3). He believed differently. He believes an individual’s dream do not distinguish the true meaning of the individual (Jacobson, 3). In other words, Jung thinks a person can dream about anything, and it will mean nothing (Jacobson, 3). Instead, he believes dreams have many different meanings and that they do not interpret ideas (McLeish, 3). He sees dreams like a series of events. Freud disagrees because he believes it is the individual’s character and self-creating the imaginations (Jacobson, 3). In other words, Freud develops a theory that dreams come from the individual’s thoughts and personality, and Jung develops a theory that dreams are just symbolic imagery and have no true