Category: Carl Jung

Psychodynamic theory: Freud

How relevant do you think Freud’s ideas are in the modern world? How useful do you think they would be in helping counselling clients?

We have all used a Freudian theory in our day by day discourse as our priggish self-declared psychology companions may have called attention to. Actually, the individuals who considered psychology in college and concentrated a couple of parts of Freudian way of thinking accept that they can pursue a person from their first gathering with them. In any case, plenty of Sigmund Freud’s hypotheses were defective. Present day analysts accept that his investigative capacities were tinged with a touch of sexism, agnosticism, and a ton of maternal problems.

In any case, it is essential to remember that the twentieth century, which fundamentally affected Freud’s hypotheses, likewise approached constrained mechanical and pharmaceutical progressions. Accordingly, in those days offering the correct sort of pills to bothered patients was very little of an open-end choice on the table. Rather, inferring and breaking down the mental point of view of an individual, anyway precisely or not, was something that Freud before long turned into the ace of.

Freud’s psychodynamic hypothesis expresses that human character is the consequence of generally oblivious, inner clashes among the structures of the human personality. The elements of this contention through beginning periods of advancement can decide a person’s character in adulthood. Today’s psychology, both hypotheses and practice are mixed. In the post-present day period of psychology new approaches and went with analysis proliferate. The normal patient looking for the treatment of a gentle condition is not a decent possibility for a Freudian methodology. As referenced, this depends on the time and cost limitations of therapy. In its place any of the subjective based methodologies would appear to be all together.

Freud’s quarrelsome hypotheses and strategies incorporate his expected inclusiveness, his attention on human sexuality, his treatment rehearses, his accentuation on grown-ups, and his absence of observational proof. In spite of Freud’s enduring impact on individuals, he has totally been secured out in the field of scholastics since a lot of his work is viewed as wrong and can nor be demonstrated by logical proof or even human experience. The examination model utilized by Freud can’t be praised by numerous individuals in this era. With that said, in my opinion, I do not think Freud’s ideas are relevant in the modern world and it would not be useful in helping clients.

Psychodynamic theory: Jung’s view of the world

Compared with Freud, do you think Jung’s views are more understandable and more easily applied to day to day existence?

The psychodynamic theory has been overlooked, its history and fate were unsure. Nonetheless, Carl Jung has revived it and utilizing medicinal psychology, which was progressively particular from the developing study of psychology than today clinical psychology, and social sciences. He created brain research of the mind, that was inventive, and testing in attesting exploratory and investigative brain science jobs in understanding human experience past the conviction of power of physical clarification.

Carl Jung was acclaimed by many, after Sigmund Freud, as one of the most compelling pioneers of psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and the investigation of the awareness. Carl Jung, particularly, understood his own possess contrast from Freud. While Freud used the oedipal idea in youth improvement, Jung propelled that grown-up life is translated on numerous and explicit difficulties. Like this, Carl Jung has succeeded in creating many more theories and test which is relevant to the modern world.

Carl Jung likewise built up the columns for a test, still utilized in current brain science by business associations, instructive establishments, direction advisors, and specialists. Jung utilized his hypothesis of mental kinds of a contemplative person, detecting instinct, thinking or feeling and judging or seeing as components to characterization. His speculations, while just utilized as structural tools for other progressive psychology studies on this present-day are as yet significant in current society. His perspectives on the otherworldly, and the religious world gave him an alternate point of view on how he moved towards psychology and the mind.

As we transition into 2020 it is a good time to question how well do we know our selves? How do we make sense of our old wounds, our desires, our triggers and behavior? How can we become more balanced, spiritually evolved and how do we harness all our inner power? Perhaps while the seasons shift, it is time to initiate some shadow work. Let’s call this an act of searching for the light in the darkness within us.

A formal introduction to the “shadow” would be to look at it as the concept first invented by Psychiatrist Carl Jung, who described “the shadow self” as disowned parts of our selves that were most probably developed during our childhood or early life. Since these parts cannot be eradicated as they are part of our experience; our emotions, impulses and desires become repressed and find a home deep down in our unconscious self where they are left to evolve unexamined and are hugely involved in our self sabotaging behaviors.

“In each of us there is another whom we do not know” – C.G. Jung

Carl Jung was deeply devoted to studying ancient esoteric knowledge and spiritual scriptures, that would help him treat not only the mind but also the soul of a human being. That led him to coin the archetypes model, which whispered an idea that our minds are fragmented of different “selves” that affect how we experience our emotions, circumstances and difficulties in life. The two main Archetypes are the “Persona” and the Shadow Self”.

Our shadow self or plainly put; the dark side of our personality consists of negative human emotions and impulses, like anger, insecurity, selfishness, parts we deny in our selves and thoughts we find dangerous. Parts of our selves we don’t want to claim as our own then become our disowned self. But its always there lingering causing us suffering.

In some cultures, throughout beginning of time, societies believed that a person can precipitously lose their soul. When they go trough extreme trauma, the spirit will leave the body to protect its self- leaving the person wondering lost in detachment and without hope. That was the root of depression, burnout or unresponsive ego. To bring the soul back home, you had to engage in significant shadow work.

Shadow work involves diving in to the darker side of our unconscious and facing your hidden desires, fears and insecurities so that we could recognize and comprehend them, heal them and adapt them in a healthy manner so that we could bring fruitful changes into our lives. This includes a healthy dialog with our dark brother or sister, and embracing that side of us as it is part of who we are- always lingering right behind.

“We meet our selves time and time again, in a thousand disguises on the path of life” – C.G. Jung

While it is common to believe the shadow self is our negative side, this is not always true. The shadow is really what we consider dark and undesirable about our selves and consequently need to suppress and deny. This solely depends on how we view the world, our selves in it and our own self-esteem. Perhaps someone’s shadow might include certain basic elements such as laziness, sadness, or anger, they might also keep hidden their independence, personal power, or empathy towards others.

Shadow work means waking up to our selves and being truly honest about changing, evolving living life with an open heart. Waking up the parts of our selves that we find difficult, parts we may not want to accept or look at too closely. It is essential to start examining ourselves with curiosity, to be able to understand and heal the wounds we are bleeding from, otherwise we will keep responding from them and from our hijacked nervous system.

Observe your motivations, are you doing something for your personal gain or are you considering other people involved? What is it that triggers you in other people, and do you recognize those same traits within your self? Reflect, revise and find where improvements are needed, get to the root of whatever is blocking you from reaching to the next level. But most importantly give your self permission to be you – accepting the frightening parts of your self that you kept hidden.

Your darker nature holds as much of a key to your ideal life as your best self does, since your shadow has all the parts of you that you have dismissed in order to fit with the society. When you expose these parts and use them to help your self, you stop living unconsciously, and reactively. You will learn that when you give your self permission to be who you truly are, completely and with confidence, you will begin to live in harmony, since you are not restricting to just one part of your self while other parts are trapped in the darkness. There is no need to sugar coat your multifaceted character in order to live the life you want.

Facing your darkness is not for the faint of heart. It takes true courage to do this and to be this raw with one self. To peel back layers of your self and meet your true motivation that’s not united with what you have been telling your self. Use the world as your mirror, write down what you discover about your self, be open and receptive. When you integrate all parts of your self, you wake up to who you truly are, and that’s the most authentic path to living freely, and that is powerful. “How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole” – C.G. Jung

Many have developed theories of personality, and one of the most notable was created by psychiatrist, Carl Jung. Bruce Neubeaur describes Jung’s theory of personality as “a topology derived from innate preferences regarding how humans receive and process information.” (2001, p. 297) Jung’s theory of personality is well known and inspired the notable Meyers-Briggs personality type indicator. This essay will aim to give an educational summary of Jung’s personality theory.

To understand the reasoning behind Jung’s theory it is crucial to understand his past. While his father was a Lutheran pastor, his mother differed drastically. His mother came from a rich family and supported his father. She was a mystic. She felt like she communicated with ghosts and believed there were ghosts that lived in their home. She was often bedridden due to depression and anxiety. Thanks to his mother’s mystical beliefs, Jung believed in nontraditional ways of knowing. He himself studied mythology, Native Americans and their mystical beliefs, and other cultures. He was fascinated with speaking to the dead, astrology, and witchcraft. He brought a very philosophical approach to psychology. He was counter cultural which led him to being ostracized from other psychologists of the time (Corbett, 2009).

Introversion and Extraversion

At the root of his theory is introversion and extraversion. Jung came up with the theory of introversion and extraversion to clarify how Freud and Adler’s ideas on personality were different (Dolliver, 1994). Dolliver defines the traits saying, “extraversion is the turning of attention outward… introversion is the turning of attention inward” (Dolliver, 1994, p. 192). Extraverts look at the world around them. They are energized by others. Introverts look inward and are in tune with their inner world. While Freud coined the term libido to refer to sexual pleasures, Jung viewed it as general life energy. He used the concept of libido when developing the theory of extraversion and introversion. If one directed their libido outward towards objects or other people, Jung would consider them an extravert. If one’s libido was directed inward on the self, Jung would label them an introvert. (Benjamin, 2019, p. 119) These ideas of introversion and extraversion are opposites. In Jung’s theory opposite tensions result in energy. As one grows older the opposites start to settle and they become more balanced. For example, a child may start out very shy but as they mature you see them grow and become better at socializing. This is the process of maturing. There is less urgency in one’s personality as they mature. As one matures and balances out, they have less energy because they are becoming more balanced. Another aspect of maturation is learning to accept oneself. This is also referred to as individuation.

Different Categories

There are eight different categories in Jung’s theory. His theory is not necessarily limited to eight types, rather Jung put emphasis on eight different types. The categories for Jung’s typology are extraversion vs. introversion (EI), thinking vs. feeling (TF), sensing vs. intuition (SN), and judging vs. perceiving (JP) (Furnham et. al, 2005). Those who are categorized as thinkers look at what is going on around them and use reasoning to figure out a logical solution. Those with a preference towards feeling look inward at their own emotions. They let their heart lead them. Those with a preference towards sensing rely on what is real and what has been explained. They do not read between the lines. Those who have a strong sense of intuition rely on their gut feelings. They read more into situations than those with a preference towards feeling. Those classified as judging look at what is rational. They utilize both the thinking and feeling functions. Those who are perceptive utilize both sensing and intuition. They think about what feels best to them (Pittinger, 1993). The idea is that a person is either more introverted or extraverted and is strongest in one or two of the other categories.

Bruce Neubauer expands on the types (2001). Thinking and sensing are rational functions because they are influenced by reflection and actual occurrences. Intuition and feeling are non-rational functions because they are influenced by perception. Non-rational is different from irrational. While irrational means doing something that does not make sense and is often hasty, non-rational just means that it is not based on reasoning. Thinking and feeling are the judging functions and sensing and intuition are the perceiving functions. Intuition is the processing of information in a complex way. It is looking into a situation and what it means. (Neubauer, 2001)

Jung expanded on these ideas in his book Psychological Types (Jung, 1971). While everyone is unique and different Jung said the introverted is most commonly a thinking type. This would fall under the functions of thinking, sensing, and judging. On the contrary he said the extraverted are more commonly feeling types. This would fall under feeling, intuition, and perceiving. All parts are innate necessary parts of the person, these functions were just meant to help identify one’s strengths and weaknesses. Jung expressed this saying “there can never be a pure type in the sense that it possesses only one mechanism with the complete atrophy of the other.” (Jung, 1971, pg. 6) Types are very general description. Two people can be the same type but differ greatly (Jung, 1971).

An issue that was upsetting for Jung was that he felt his theory had been misconstrued. The different personality types were only a small part of his book, yet that was the main takeaway. The types were never meant to be an end all be all but rather a helpful tool. He did not agree with claiming one specific type because he felt as if that was simply sticking on labels (Meyer, 2016). Jung knew that one could possess traits from multiple types. He also believed that everyone possessed both introversion and extroversion, one was just more prominent (Dolliver, 1994). Everyone has every function as well, one function is just strongest (Neaubeaur, 2001). Jung himself said that typology involves much “diversity of individual psychic dispositions, tendencies, and convictions” (Jung, 1971, p. 14).

Collective and Personal Unconscious

In the textbook A Brief History of Modern Psychology, by L.T. Benjamin (2019) A brief section of a chapter is dedicated to the disagreements between Jung and Freud, as well as Jung’s theories. Jung had a close relationship with Sigmund Freud, who was somewhat of a mentor to Jung. After a series of disagreements, the two ended their relationship when Jung wrote Psychology of the Unconscious. Jung’s theory is labeled analytical psychology to distinguish it from Freud’s psychoanalysis. A major difference between the two theories was that Jung divided the unconscious into two distinct parts: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.

Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious was influenced by his time spent with the Native Americans. The collective unconscious is the collective experience of our ancestors. It is believed this is illustrated by the repeating patterns seen throughout generations. For example, the story of the great flood is repeated throughout many mythologies. Jung would say that it is something deeply embedded in the common heritage. It is an ancient memory that all people are connected to. An example of accessing the collective unconscious would be mother’s intuition. An expecting mom may ask “How will I know how to be a mother?” One would respond saying “You will just know.” Jung would say that because of the history of mothering you will be able to access that information at the necessary time. Another evidence of the collective unconscious is synchronicities. Synchronicities are meaningful coincidences. The idea is that because humans are connected through the collective unconscious, they have a tendency to bring each other together.

The collective unconscious is where archetypes come into play. Archetypes are patterns of behavior. Archetypes are innate behaviors and can quite suddenly control one’s actions. (Film Media Group 1968) Jung thought that archetypes were inherited behaviors and personality traits from past generations. The archetypal experience is experiencing opposite tensions within us. Jung represented this in the yin and the yang. He taught that archetypes can be seen in repeating myths. Heroes are examples of this. The hero is often an underdog. They do not have any physical or obvious characteristics that would identify them as the hero. They have an innate ability that only they can do that saves the day. We see this pattern of the hero repeated a countless amount over time. Jung taught that the most important archetype was the self, which unites the conscious and unconscious components of a person. According to Jung the self develops by individuation, which is the process of someone uniting their archetypes in one personality (Benjamin, 2019, p. 119).

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” Carl Jung did not just say these words but lived them. An article from the New York Times shares Jung’s personal journey with the unconscious (Corbett, 2009). The personal unconscious was something that Jung held deeply personal. He believed the personal unconscious refers to the hidden desires of a person that seems foreign to them yet are a part of them. Jung saw the unconscious very spiritually and believed it could be used to discover a wealth of information and bring healing to a person. He studied it in depth for a period of time when some have speculated, he was mentally ill. He was having disturbing images and hearing voices. For about a period of six years Jung yearned to discover his own personal unconscious and to do so he willingly induced hallucinations. He called this period of time a “confrontation with the unconscious.” He carefully wrote all of his experiences down, in a chilling book called the Red Book (Corbett, 2009).

Jungian definitions

In an interview with Films Media Group, Jung defined some terms used in his theory (1968). Anima and animus are a couple of the terms Jung expanded on. Anima is a man’s female tendencies. Animus is a woman’s masculine tendencies. The anima and animus make one self-conscious of sexual selectivity (Peterson, 2018-present). He also expanded on his use of the terms self and ego. He differentiates the two terms saying that “self is a matter of personality that is more complete than the ego. Because the ego consists of what your culture is.” The responsibility of the ego is to organize and combine the internal and external world (Hopwood, 2006). The self manages and organizes all the different parts of the personality into a complete unit. (Films Media Group, 1968)

Jordan Peterson explains that the self is everything that a person could be across time (Peterson, 2018-present). To be oneself would mean that one would be living up to their full potential. It is living in a way that gains the most possible. People tend to act as if a “true self” is real even though it technically is not. It is everything that one could be but is not yet. One becomes more and more themself over time but are never fully there. When someone stretches themselves and enters a new environment, new genes are turned on in the nervous system. It encodes for new proteins. This is quite literally biological potential that will only be realized by entering new environments and doing new things. This manifests new elements. Some have said that the baby represents all that the self could be. One finds themself by regaining all that was lost as a child (Peterson, 2018-present).

One short interview is not enough to define all of Jung’s key concepts. Ann Hopwood defines several more in her journal article (2006). She explained complexes, the persona, and the shadow. Complexes are “internal distractions.” The one who possesses the complex is unaware. It is part of the collective unconscious and often an archetype. A persona is the part that one chooses to show the world, whether consciously or unconsciously. It has often been coined “the ego’s personal relations person.” It could be considered the light, while the shadow could be considered the dark. The persona possesses desirable traits while the shadow contains undesirable traits. The shadow is a complex that everyone possesses. It is what the person finds detestable and hides from the world and themselves. It is oftentimes the opposite of the persona. “Here is the Jungian idea of one aspect of the personality compensating for another: where there is light, there must also be shadow” (2006, pg. 4). The shadow is a necessary part of the personality because without it one may be shallow and lose all regard for other’s opinions. It is what creates depth. Often the shadow comes to light through projection. Lots of times one possesses the traits that annoy them about others (Hopwood, 2006). Jung himself said “everything that irritates us about others can lead to an understanding about ourselves.”

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, Carl Jung is one of the most important contributors in psychology’s history. Even if someone has not directly heard of Carl Jung, they have most likely heard of the Meyers Briggs personality test, which credits Jung’s theories. Much of his life was dedicated to studying why people are the way they are, and human development. He founded the theory of introversion and extraversion as well as his eight types. Deeply personal to him was his theory of consciousness, which included the collective unconscious and the personal unconscious. The collective unconscious is where archetypes fit in to Jung’s theory. His highly ambitious theory also included the ideas of the anima and animus, the self and the ego, complexes, the persona, and the shadow. All throughout Jungian theory we see the idea of opposites and most importantly individuation. Jung himself said “the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” That is what his whole theory is about. Understanding oneself and making sense of who one really is.

Karl Jung’s work on the psychology of religion was both ground breaking and amongst the first of its kind in its field; however, like his predecessors, his work was not without flaws or to be met without criticism from within the psychological community and from outside disciplines. Commentators have since argued that Jung rejected the notion of God existing beyond the realms of one’s personal psyche. This essay will address Karl Jung’s depth psychology and its pertaining fundamental concepts which arguably reduced God to a psychic fact. To support this proposition, I will firstly define fundamental Jungian concepts, followed by an analysis of Jung’s conceptualisation of the self as a symbol of the divine. Additionally, a review of some of Jung’s commentators will be discussed, concluding with an evaluation of the way in which Jung ultimately reduced God to a psychic fact.

To understand what Jung posited about God one must first understand Jung from a psychological perspective. Jung understood one’s psyche to be “the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious…” (Jung 1971, p.463, para. 797). Like the human body, the psyche is a self-regulating system that essentially maintains the balance of opposites and seeks the development of growth, a process that Jung referred to as ‘individuation’. His concept of the psyche can be understood as component parts that form a whole and is broken down as follows:

The Ego: For Jung, the ego is at the core of one’s consciousness; “by ego I understand a complex of ideas which constitutes the center of my field of consciousness and appears to possess a high degree of continuity and identity” (Jung 1971, p. 425, para. 706). It is the part of the psyche where one’s thoughts, feelings, senses, and intuition, and access to memory reside. The Ego can be understood as the component part responsible for forming and shaping the way in which one perceives and relates to the external world. For Jung, personal relation to the external world is determined by levels of extroversion and introversion and the individual performance of the four personality types: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition (Kreiman 2018, para. 6).

Unconscious: Key to Jung’s depth psychology is his understanding of the unconscious mind. “In my view the unconscious is a psychological borderline concept, which covers all psychic contents or processes that are not conscious, i.e., not related to the ego in any perceptible way” (Jung 1971, p. 483, para. 837). Material is integrated into the ego from the unconscious realm of the psyche which Jung further distinguishes into the ‘personal unconscious’ and ‘collective unconscious’ (Tse 2012, para. 5).

Personal Unconscious: According to Jung the personal unconscious comprises of “…all the acquisitions of personal life, everything forgotten, repressed, subliminally perceived, thought and felt” (Jung 1971, p. 485, para 842).

Collective Unconscious: Jung then further identified a deeper layer of the unconscious which he referrers to as the collective unconscious, which “… in addition to these personal unconscious contents, are other contents which do not originate in personal acquisitions… these are the mythological associations, the motifs and images that can spring up anew anytime anywhere, independently of historical tradition or migration” (Jung 1971, p. 485, para. 842). The collective unconscious contains themes, structures, images and symbols which Jung refers to as archetypes.

Archetypes: Jung describes archetypes as “systems of readiness for action, and at the same time images and emotions inherited with the brain structure… that portion [of the brain] through which the psyche is attached to nature” (Jung 1970, p. 31, para. 53). Furthermore, archetypal images which reveal themselves in the forms of motifs and universal patterns are “the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends and fairy tales” (Daryl Sharp 1991, p. 12). Key to this essay are the Shadow archetype, the Self archetype, and the God archetype.

The Shadow Archetype: According to Jung, “the shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort” (Jung 1969, p. 8, para. 14). However, the moral problem presented by the shadow has an answer in the Self.

The Self Archetype: In line with Jung’s positing of archetypes comes his conceptulisation of ‘The Self’, which “… proves to be an archetypal idea which differs from other ideas of the kind in that it occupies a central position befitting the significance of its content and its numinosity” (Jung 1971, p. 460, para 791). It is the center of consciousness and unconsciousness, is superior to the ego and the antithesis of the Shadow (Hunt-Meeks, 1983, p. 196) (Jung 1968) IN THE ESSAY Where the shadow represents disharmony the Self represents wholeness “in dreams, myths, and fairytales in the figure of the ‘supraordinate personality’, such as a king, hero, prophet, saviour, etc., or in the form of a totality symbol, such as the circle, square, quadratura circuit, cross, etc” (Jung 1971, p. 460, para. 790).

The God Archetype: To understand Jung’s God archetype one only need look at his definition of the Self. The Self represents the values of wholeness or unity which “stand at the highest point on the scale of objective values because their symbols can no longer be distinguished from the imago Dei”, essentially, “all statements about the God-image also apply to the empirical symbols of totality” (Jung 1969 p. 31, para. 59). Both archetypes produce symbols in the form of the circle, the mandala, the quaternion or other quaternal forms which represent wholeness or unity (Tse 2012, para. 9). Effectively, the symbols of the archetypal Self are indistinguishable from the symbols produced by the archetype of God.

Reconciliation of Opposites: These three key archetypal ideas come together in what Jung refers to as integration or the reconciliation of opposites. For Jung wholeness or integration consisted of the union of opposites which are symbolised by quaternities balancing good and evil. In order for reconciliation to occur “repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a tension of opposites…the conscious mind is on top, the shadow underneath, and just as high always longs for low and hot for cold, so all consciousness, perhaps without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite…” (Jung 1966, p. 53, para. 78).

What are dreams, what allows them to happen, and what do they mean?

Today I will discuss with you two theories of dreaming. Sigmund Freud’s 1899 ‘Interpretation of dreams’ (Freud, 1995) theory as well as Carl Jung’s The Archetype and The Collective unconscious (Jung, 1971). Modern-day psychologists perceive dreams to be the result of unsystematic brain activity that occurs while asleep, other psychologists consider the famous dream theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, who hypothesize that dreams can reveal and perceive a person’s conscious desires and beliefs.

Theory 1- Freud

Sigmund Freud began his studies in 1896, where he would analyse the brains of voluntary patients to understand individual personality within dreams and the way in which they relate to pathology. He transformed the way at which neuroscientists perceived the study of dreams with his 1899 work ‘The Interpretation Of Dreams’ (Freud 1995) . His book discusses the motivation of your conscience and the effect it has on your dreams. The outcome of your dreams are determined and motivated by your unconscious. Humans subconscious is what allows them to hold back sexual or secretive impulses created by the brain. Freud’s theory is that these urges are released through the form of symbolic dreams that can represent aggression or sexual desire.

Slide 3 Sigmund Freud was popularly known for his work on the Human Psyche Structural Model, first introduced within a seminal paper he released in 1923 “The Ego and the ID”. Freud’s model closely defined his theories of id, ego and superego, all of which are of value within the function of psychoanalysis.

The ID is engaged with Freud’s 1920 principle of pleasure that states urges such as sex, hunger and thirst deserve urgent gratification despite possible consequences. The ID is revolved around the response of biological impulses and urges that humans experience. In theory; the ID is connected to the unconscious components of the mind, unlike the ego and superego. It remains juvenile from birth to adulthood and is not influenced by actions or external reality.

The ego is described by Freud as ‘the part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world.’ (Freud, 1923, p. 25). The id works with the pleasure principle, while the ego works with the reality principle. The ego analyses the urges created by the id and creates compromising fulfillment in order to reject negative consequences. Unlike the id, the ego functions with logic and apprehension with the consideration of social standard, rules and civility. Freud related the ego to be ‘like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse.’ (Freud, 1923, p. 15). Therefore, the ego is fragile in comparison to the power of the urges provided by the id.

The super-ego is a suggestible function fused by morals that are implicated during the stages of psychosexual development by parents or other authoritative figures. The purpose of the superego is to control the urges that defies the norms of society, such as aggressive and sexual action. Its role is to influence the ego to seek for more rational and realistic goals. The super-ego subsists of two structures; ego-self and the conscience. The ego-self works to produce a representation of a human’s aspirations in terms of their future, career and behaviour. The conscience exists to discipline the ego when it fails to overcome the urges of the id. This discipline is supplied through the feeling of anxiety and guilt.

Each of these functions produce distinct features. However, they cooperate together in order to control human interaction, decision making, as well as dreams. Freud’s theory states that through the use of dreaming, humans are able to release and fulfil these impulses and pleasures in their unconscious sleeping state. When awake these desires produced by ID are suppressed by the ego and censored by the superego. Through the use of dreaming people are able to release and view these impulses in their dreams.

Sigmund Freud’s theory was also heavily based around the concept of the interpretation of symbolism within one’s dreams. In his work, the ‘Interpretation Of Dreams’ Freud discusses his theories on the symbols and sensors exhibited within human sleeping state, His theory states that the ID, as mentioned before craves the fulfillment of its desires, when unconscious the ego is able to fulfill these repressed impulses through the visual interpretation of dreams. However; these sexual or aggressive urges can appear to be psychologically harmful so the superego is able to sensor the imagery with symbols that can preserve sleep and as a result cause unexplainable and ambiguous visuals.

Humans are normally represented in dreams to be a house, with holding their beliefs, thoughts and needs

Parents are represented in the form of King’s and Queen’s, due to their authority

Children are represented as small animals, due to their vulnerability and reliance on their carers.

Birth is expressed through the rescuing of someone from a body of water, which indicates a mother like a relationship

These are a few examples of the symbols that can be viewed in dreams, however the most extensive symbols are seen in sexual life. The greatest amount of symbols in dreams are the symbols of sex. Inanimate objects such as umbrellas, poles, trees and sticks all represent the male genitalia. Other objects could be faucets, telescopes, swords and daggers due to their powers of penetration and injury.

Female genitalia is symbolically expressed through objects that can be filled, such as; caves, bottles, jars, trunks, bags and shoes. Masturbation can be represented by tearing branches off trees. Sexual intercourse is symbolised by these objects coming in contact with each other

Now I will ask the class to use Freud’s methods of dream interpretation in order to hypothesize and analyse the following dreams;

I’m in a big field surrounded by chime-adorned trees. Rocks are strewn across the grass, and a big factory stands in the back of the field. I realize that I’m on the campus of a squirrel crematorium (squirrels are cremated in the factory and rock is put in the field to represent each cremated squirrel). Then I walk into the factory and see Douglas (the redhead boy who, IRL, was head of the yearbook when I was in sixth grade) at a big, fancy desk. I scream at him not to pull the lever next to his desk (not sure why), but he pulls it anyway, and then I wake up.

Using the Freudian method of dream interpretation, unusual dreams such as this once supposedly make a lot of sense. Scientifically speaking, squirrels fail to remember where they hide 80% of their food and nuts. When analysing this dream, Freud’s theory suggests that the dreamer could be hoarding something. The mention of cremation as well as a commemoration suggests a feeling of grief or remembrance. This dream is predominantly placed around the feeling of letting something go and holding past memories.

Theory 2- Jung

Carl Jung spent most of his life extinguishing the functions of the psyche and the way in which it influences the human. Through his work ‘The Archetype and The Collective unconscious’ (Jung, 1971) he discusses his theories of dream interpretation. Carl Jung’s theory is that human dreams are strongly based around the way in which the unconscious communicates human relationships and events within the waking self. He stated that dreams are a visual model of spiritual growth. Jung valued dream interpretation and analysis. He states that simply by recalling the situations that have taken place in life, you are able to relate these situations to the events in your dreams. However, the meaning of your dreams is a personal knowledge and dreams don’t need to be interpreted in order to fulfil their purpose.

Jung believes in the existence of the unconscious as spiritual rather than emotional or sexual. Your dreams are a connection between your waking self and your unconscious. They are able to communicate through visual imagery and Archetypes. His theory suggests that dreams are a function made to produce answers to questions and solutions to problems that occur in a waking state.

Through his studies he discovered the relationship between the personal unconscious (our personal beliefs and thoughts) and our collective unconscious (the thoughts shared across human kind). The contents of the collective unconscious is called archetypes. Archetypes are known as the unconscious’ model image of a person’s living role. Archetypes represent a human’s structure and experiences as we evolve and overcome certain experiences. As said by Carl Jung “It seems to me their origin can only be explained by assuming them to be deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity” (CW7:109). Archetypes are not individually given but inherited from ancestors.

There are 4 common archetypes experienced by humans. The Shadow which withholds secret anxieties, negative beliefs and repressed thoughts. The Anima/Animus’ role is to differentiate masculine traits from feminine ones, controls gender identity. The persona is the identity within ourselves that human’s wish to express to the outside world. The self is an archetype that expresses the independent unconsciousness and consciousness of each individual. In theory, each archetype plays its own role in human dreams and personality but most oftenly one dominates the rest.

While Psychology is inconsistent within the studies of neuroscience, Carl Jung’s theory are still popular within the studies of neuroscientists. Popular applications such as the Personality Type indicator and the Polygraph Lie detector are directly based on Jung’s research and theories.

Carl Jung had a more authentic and introspective look on the human mind. I feel that Jung was able to look at aspects of ourselves that make us innately human, Jung’s archetypes are key foundations in understanding our unconscious. Although I do not believe that Jung’s archetypes should be taken completely literally, I do believe the archetypes help us with baselines to the human experience. In this paper I will be focusing on the self, one of Carl Jung’s archetypes. I am especially interested in this archetype because of the ties to spiritualism, I believe all humans, religious or not form their identity and the journey on experiences brought together by individuation.

Carl Jung was born July 26, 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland. He was born to a dysfunctional family as his father was a clergyman, who later turned to rage, and his mother suffered from psychosis. Carl Jung’s mother was unstable and reported to act strange around the house. Jung’s parents slept in separate rooms, and the behavior of his mother added to the overall family stress, especially with the failed expectations of having more children (Mattoon, 2005). Jung was understandably an introvert from an early age and proffered to study sciences, religion, and later medicine. Jung pursued his medical degree and obtained his medical degree at the University of Zurich with a specialization in psychiatry. After receiving his medical degree Jung went on to work at the Burghölzli psychiatric hospital in Zurich where he became a senior physician, previously being trained by Pierre Janet (Crowther, 1997). Jung was extremely influenced by Janet’s work, particularly Jung’s interest in hallucinations and mental disorders. While Jung was at the Burghölzli he was able to work under the direction of Eugen Bleuler, which allowed Jung to become more involved in psychotherapy and mental illness.

Jung was introduced to Freud in 1907. The men began exchanges of letters exploring ideologies and theories, and became fast, intense, friends. Freud regarded Jung as someone who would take on Freud’s ideologies and continue his practices in psychotherapy and even called Jung his “crown prince” (Crowther, 1997). However, due to differences in these views, Jung being more interested in the symbolism of the unconscious mind, the friendship ended causing Jung to experience a mental break- probably due to his predisposition to experience mental illness. Jung tilted to understanding the libido as psychic energy and focused on the persons quest to wholeness which founded his role in analytical psychology (Schultz & Schultz, 2016). During this time of mental break, Jung used his own illness to study his unconscious and to from his foundations of archetypes (Mattoon, 2005). Jung formed the base of his work on many different principles including philosophy, theology, and his own human experience- thus making his work extremely relatable from other fields.

Carl Jung is notable for his work in the unconscious, particularly the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious, which is more accessible, contains our wishes, experiences, and memories. Then, the collective unconscious is a cumulative knowledge from previous generations including animal ancestors that guide us as a collective experience (Schultz & Schultz, 2016). In fact, a large contributor to Jung belief in the collective unconscious was when the first world war broke out- this was due to Jung believing he has visions and dreams of revolution. When the first world war broke out, Jung believed his dreams to be from the collective unconscious (Jung, 1958). Jung’s study of the unconscious indirectly guided him to his interest and development in archetypes which will be discussed in the majority of this paper. Archetypes are parts of the collective unconscious that can be recognized in common images or themes (Schultz & Schultz, 2016).

Jung had rooted himself in humanism with his work on the unconscious and the roles that archetypes play in our lives. Particularly humanistic was his archetype: The Self, which goes into that humans have a need for self-realization. As humans, we have an innate desire to integrate all parts of ourselves- even parts that we are not able to acknowledge. Along with the self, there is also individuation, which goes along with the principle that humans want to integrate themselves completely, individuation applies the process of humans becoming an individual- in a spiritual nature. Individuation separates self-knowledge and tries to go beyond that and involves connecting to humanity and being a part of the human collective (Schultz & Schultz, 2016). The purpose of this archetype is to strive for inner knowledge, and to be involved in this larger journey to become whole, and to be the best version of yourself (Pennachio, 1992). Jung believed there was a distinct link between an individual, and collectivism. He explained that in order to get through, at the time, the war or individuals limits of rationality you must be transformed. In order to be transformed and to know oneself, you must confront a “chaotic unconscious” (Jung, 1958).

The importance of the self is to transcend from our knowledge we already hold, and in order for us to grow as humans, and to grow in humanity understanding the self is key in unlocking that part of our unconscious. In our process of individuation, we must achieve our understanding of the self. Jung felt that our unconscious can be influenced by several different factors, and to survive the “psychic infection” it can cause, we need to have self-knowledge. Jung emphasized the self in our unconscious because without this archetype it is hard to build upon the others, so without having the self- we have nothing (Jung, 1958). Something that makes Jung’s work on archetypes, and specifically the self so applicable and eternal is that each of these archetypes and “The Self” as a whole are so interconnected with humanity. As humans we want to know ourselves and to transcend to that layer of knowing and self-knowledge, Jung believed this and used it as a basis of understanding the human experience (Bishop, 2014). Although we often see a larger frequency of archetypes emerging, like the shadow, but the importance of the self is the baseline of individuality, and the human attempt to explain themselves to the collective (Jung, 1958).

The work and ideologies of Carl Jung gave him eternal life in psychology. The study of the unconscious brought upon archetypes that describe our deepest parts of us, as humans and individuals urging ourselves to understand our part in the collective experience of humanity. Jung has an extremely influential legacy that lays the foundation for future psychological work, many times we forget there is some truth into his descriptions of the self and part of it isn’t where we are able to admit it right away. Now, we can look at these foundations as something to build upon, and although simplified, we are able to build upon it. Jung’s study of archetypes is so important to modern day theories and psychotherapy, and his roots in humanism show great progress to humans becoming their whole selves. Our work into the self, contribute to feelings of wellbeing- and part of our purpose is to understand ourselves and others. Jung felt there was an importance to that, he used his work to transform people who needed to shy away from “psychic infection”.

When discussing The Devil and Miss Prym and “The Lottery” three main points will be proven the first point shall be how both stories show conflicts and patterns. The second point archetype is being shown in both stories discussing who’s the scapegoat in each story. Third discussing how both stories connect with different philosophies, and their theories.

The type of conflict means “situations or problem causing the action”(Detrick, Literature). In the book “The Lottery” there are many examples of person versus society. The villagers had a tradition they did yearly which was picking a slip of paper out of a black box whoever had the slip of paper with the black dot was the one who got stoned to death. The villagers liked to think this event was to keep the crops healthy, but no one knew why the tradition was set for. Some even question should this tradition continue if it only results in innocence deaths. After Tesse was picked to be stone she then saw that the tradition “wasn’t fair” (Jackson). As she pleads to the town not to kill her.

The penalty sacrifice was seen in The Devil and Miss Prym as well but had a different turn of events. After a stranger enters the town the villagers were faced with a decision to make should they sacrifice Old Berta for their greed, or should they do good and spare her life? The stranger (Carlos) wanted to see if there was good or evil in people seeing if they would take the bait (Gold). After the shocking results, Carlos has seen that there was good in people. Both stories tested humanity seeing if the towns would pick someone’s lives over their greed and belongs. Although Teese was a sacrifice at the end of the story she looked over her action the year before and saw her excitement to participate and later found out she should have been the person to stand up against this horrible tradition; Tesse was not the only one that felt that way. Finally, Mrs. Hutchinson realized the whole concept is wrong after seeing her friend stoned to death.

Archetypes have been seen throughout each story, but the idea behind the sacrifice was “without sorrow or death there can be no springtime joy,”(Janaro & Altshuler, 48). In the book “The Lottery,’ the archetypes seen in, the story is Teese being the scapegoat. After the drawing happened and Tesse has been announced as the sacrifice which she could not escape. The Villagers were simply happy that they lasted another year. More archetypes shown are the characters such as Mr. Summer who is described as the kind and welcoming citizen who does not want the villagers to think down on the lottery. He keeps everyone’s hopes up as to following the tradition of the black box. His assistant, Mr. Graves, is seen as the slave always doing what is told of him. The black box being and unexpected archetype. The color black symbols’ death and unknowingness and it holds fear over the whole town.

In the book, The Devil, and Miss Prym Old Berta became the person that was nominated because of her age. Berta also sometimes wish death upon herself after her husband died, which made the decision even easier for her neighbors. When the time came Berta realized she did not want to die, and she began to love life and did not want to be the unanimous vote. Some might say Berta also symbolizes the mentor and the witch of the story. Another archetype seen is Chantal Prym who is the soul mate, and the beautiful barmaid who wants to leave the town, but in the end, she makes the right decision.

Carl Jung’s philosophy was “Apollonian: Analytic and Rational and Dionysian: Intuitive and Emotional”(Detrick, Philosophy). Therefore Carl Jung is one of many philosophers that holds an influence “Jung believed that the human psyche was composed of three components: the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious”(Cherry, 2019). That’s why Carl Jung saw many “universal symbols and patterns”(Biography). In both stories, the villagers played a big part in the behavior and patterns seen thought each story.

Archetypes seen with Carl Jung’s theory would be Carlos being the trickster he stirs up the pot to get the villagers to give in to their temptations. Chantel Prym would a fine example of the maidan she is innocent she just wants to place other than the small village. The children in “The Lottery” will symbolize the child because the innocence they show though out the book. Mr. Summer is a fine example of a wise man, he convinces and forces the people to continue their yearly tradition, but he also symbolizes the trickster although he is seen as a good citizen is wicked ways make all the villagers follow him.

In both stories, it was interesting to connect the main points with two different endings and similar beginnings. The story I found more interesting was “The Lottery”; Although it had its similarities with The Devil and Miss Prym it had a tragic ending in “The Lottery”. It was surprising that the villagers choose to do evil instead of ending the tradition, and it was also surprising that Tesse kids turned and threw stones at her. The events were much clearer to see when forming my main points.

Biographical Information

Born on July 26th, 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland, Carl Jung had a religious upbringing, as his father was a pastor and his mother was daughter to a prominent theologian of the time. The Zeitgeist of rural Switzerland at the time was also so that Christianity in the area was often linked with superstitious beliefs This superstition was a result of his mother’s mental illness during his childhood, as she would complain about the spirits who would visit her at night. Jung would go on to have many dreams which dealt with the supernatural, further reinforcing his superstitious beliefs (Maraldi et. al). This childhood superstition would go on to inspire Jung’s work as a psychologist and would forever alter the way her perceived himself and the world. He would also experience bizarre and vivid dreams during his childhood, the contents of which would involve spirits or other supernatural phenomena, sparking his interest in the meaning of dreams and eventually dream analysis. Jung’s mother’s mental illness and frequent hospitalization to psychiatric units would also influence Jung’s interest in the human mind. He would even refer to himself as having two different personalities; one as a child, and the other as a cynical and perceptive elderly man (Hopper).

Jung would go on to study medicine at the University of Basel in 1895 and the University of Zurich in 1900, after which he gained his medical degree in 1902. It was while he was completing his internship at the University of Zurich that Jung began his work at the psychiatric clinic with Eugen Blueler (CITE). It was during this internship that Jung developed the concept of “complexes” through his close work with psychiatric patients. It was also during this time that Jung would marry Emma Rauschenbach, a marriage which lasted up to her death in 1955.

Eventually, Jung would encounter the work of Sigmund Freud, which practically confirmed his own beliefs on the meaning of dreams and the unconscious. Jung reached out to Freud by sending him his publication Studies in Word Association in 1904, and the two eventually met and spoke for hours about their ideas about the mind. Jung began working with Freud in the early 20th century and the two would go on to be close personal friends as well as two of the most important contributors to psychology at the time. The two differed on some of their beliefs in terms of religion/spirituality and the sexual nature of development according to Freud. This conflict highlights Jung’s religious and supernatural upbringing in Switzerland. Over time Freud’s dismissal of Jung’s integration of the supernatural into the realm of psychology and the unconscious would frustrate Jung to the point of ending their work together, as well as their friendship. After their divergence, Jung further explored his own interests in the field of psychology and published Psychology of the Unconscious in 1912, which directly critiqued Freud’s work, effectively alienating Jung from his peers in the Psychoanalytic Community.

It was after his split with Freud that Jung entered a phase of isolation, after which Jung began his work and exploration of the psychology and behavior of different ethnic and cultural groups across the globe. Jung visited the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico in the early 1920’s, and East Africa in the mid 1920’s in order to explore “primitive psychology”. However, it was Jung’s visit to India in 1937 that was the most personal and life altering to him, as he readily adopted Hindu philosophies into his own beliefs, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of the role of symbolism in the unconscious. Unfortunately, Jung fell gravely ill while in India, after which he kept his travels exclusively within Europe for the remainder of his life.

In his later years, Jung continued to release influential work as well as taking on a position as a professor of medical psychology at the University of Basel in 1943. In 1944, Jung experienced a major heart attack, leading to his resignation and the beginning of a more private life from then on. This near-death experience left Jung in a weakened psychological state in which he experienced auditory and visual hallucinations, as well as severe depression. Jung’s health continued to decline through the 1950’s until his death in 1961 at his home in Zurich.

The Zeitgeist of Jung’s time was one which shifted drastically over the years, with his superstitious beginnings in Switzerland, to two World Wars, and into the mid 20th century. Most of Jung’s work was arguably rooted in the beliefs he held in his childhood, but his interactions with Freud and the zeitgeist which allowed for greater scientific freedom in turn of the century Germany are what truly shaped his professional life and major psychological contributions. The global zeitgeist of white supremacy also shaped Jung’s interests, as it was this belief of Europeans being “civilized” and people of color portrayed as “primitive” or “savages” that led to Jung’s travels of the world, seeking to explore the “primitive mind”. During World War II, Jung was clear that he was not a Nazi sympathizer himself, but maintained Overall, Jung’s life was lived with a sense of fierce independence and creative thinking in regards to the field of psychology/psychoanalysis, as well as a rich personal life with his wife and five children.

Contributions

Jung’s contributions to the field of psychology began while he was under Freud’s wing, as the two worked together developing psychoanalysis, which is itself massively relevant and important to psychology today. However, Jung’s true work began after his split with Freud in 1912, after which he began exploring his own interests and beliefs, eventually developing his own brand of psychology, analytic psychology. Analytic psychology differed from psychoanalytic psychology in that Jung focused more on the cultural, artistic, and supernatural as opposed to Freud’s obsession with sexual development and psychosexuality as a whole. During Jung’s period of isolation after separating himself from Freud, he wrote three important papers, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology” (1916,1917), and Psychological Types (1921), both of which described the phenomena of extraversion and introversion. According to Jung, the introvert inhabits a world of the internal and can have less of an interest in spending time with others, while the extravert readily engages with others while running the risk of losing their sense of self. The concept of extraversion and introversion has withstood the test of time as to this day people readily identify themselves as either an extravert or an introvert. Jung viewed extraversion as the flow of psychical energy outward, and introversion as the flow of psychic energy inward.

Jung also developed what he referred to as archetypes in an effort to categorize repeating actions or behaviors across different populations/people in general. The four main categories of archetypes are the shadow, the anima, the animus, and the self. The shadow is similar to Freud’s Id, in that the shadow reflects our deepest and most primal desires, as well as the wildness and chaos that exists deep within. The anima and animus are truly the same thing, the anima simply refers to women while animus refers to men, as the anima/animus is the soul, it is our true selves. The final of the four main archetypes, the self, refers to the quasi-divinity of the spiritual connection to the universe all humans experience. Interestingly, these archetypes are similar to Freud’s tridimensional model of the psyche, but the differences between Jung and Freud are apparent, illustrating the similarities in their ideas in general, as the nuanced differences were what would eventually drive them apart.

In addition to the archetypes, Jung developed his own theory regarding the stages of development with a focus on the continued development that occurs in adulthood, rather than childhood. This was a first in the field of psychology. Jung’s four stages of development are childhood, youth, middle life, and old age. Childhood marks the development of a sporadic consciousness that eventually becomes capable of logical and abstract thinking, it is also the beginning of the development of the ego. The Youth stage lasts from puberty to age 35-40, in which sexuality continues to mature and the loss of childhood is mourned. It is in this phase that people typically find their life partners, as this stage marks a desire for intimacy and independence. The Middle Life stage of development is described as a time in which mortality is pondered and faced, leading to more self-reflection and philosophical thinking. The final stage is Old Age, in which the acceptance of death must occur.

Jung held many supernatural and psychic beliefs, some of which he developed into parapsychological theories such as the collective unconscious, alchemy, synchronicity, and extra-sensory perception. Jung believed the mind to be connected to something greater, using similarities between mythology and the deliriums of those experiencing a psychotic break. Jung believed that these thoughts were not merely a coincidence, and that the writer of the myth as well as the psychotic patient received the same message/symbol from the collective unconscious. Dreams and the potential for dreams to predict the future were also a part of Jung’s discussion on the collective unconscious, as well as the thought that peoples current psychology could be influenced by the psychology of ancestors through the unconscious. Jung’s fascination with the collective unconscious, as well as his other theories regarding human psychology, all come together to form Jungian psychology, Analytical Psychology. This particular branch of psychology is likely Jung’s most impactful contribution of his long-winded, and often controversial career.

Impact

Carl Jung’s impact today goes beyond the realm of psychology and has continued to attract interest to the field from people of all walks of life. Jung’s concepts such as introversion and extraversion, as well as some of his parapsychological research is still relevant in the zeitgeist of today. Almost anyone today will know immediately if they identify as an extravert or an introvert, and although his findings regarding the collective unconscious are subject to controversy, it has continued to inspire and fascinate people across the globe. Jung’s work regarding the meaning in dreams as well as dream analysis continues to live on in the form of dream journaling. Jung’s work regarding personality has also arguably helped lead to the development of the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, another psychological scale, similar to extraversion and introversion, that most people are familiar with.

Unfortunately, Jung’s analytical psychology has largely been separated from a scientific context due to its supernatural nature and difficulty in proving its existence. Due to the lack of scientific evidence for many of Jung’s theories, he’s been viewed by many as a mystic of sorts. However, Jungian psychology remains impactful today, although not in its applicability, but in its intrigue and its thought-provoking nature. Jung provided the world with meaningful new ways of pondering their own consciousness and personality, he encouraged an adventurous approach to the field of psychology and revolutionized it in the process. Jung’s

References

1. Colman, W., Morgan, H., & Weiner, J. (2015, March 15). The Legacy of Jung. Retrieved from https://www.bpc.org.uk/magazine/Jung
2. Mitchell, G. (n.d.). CARL JUNG & JUNGIAN ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY. Retrieved from https://mind-development.eu/jung.html
3. Maraldi, Everton & de Fátima Fernandes, Maria. (2018). Carl Jung (Biography).
4. Hopper, E. (2018, June 11). The Life of Carl Jung, Founder of Analytical Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/biography-of-carl-jung-4164462
5. Jones R. A. (2013). Jung’s ‘Psychology with the Psyche’ and the Behavioral Sciences. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 3(3), 408–417. doi:10.3390/bs3030408

Introduction: The Dual Personality of Chris Watts

Criminals often have two sides to them, a good and bad but can it be possible to keep one side hidden? In the case of Chris Watts, it is. Personality has many sides and this paper will analyze the personality of Chris Watts through the theories of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud

The character we display in our occupation is not the same as at home. When alone we have no one to impress, but in public we wear a mask, a persona, so that we might impose a desirable image of ourselves onto others. In one of many you tubes videos surfacing about Chris watts, in the video Chris can be viewed in a video talking about being bored with the everyday routine of a relationship. He used a workplace affair as an example of something that can cause a romance to “fall apart, crumble or fail. Fast forward a few years later and that same you tuber has had two daughters, moved to Frederick Colorado , and filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in the Colorado federal court all after having a successful visual and audio career and receiving multiple awards after working for high profile celebrities . So, what went wrong? How could this socialite go from a successful and highly paid career to being accused of strangling his wife and killing the kids after revealing to her that he was having an affair with a coworker and wanted a divorce? Criminals often have two sides to them, a good and bad but can it be possible to keep one side hidden? In the case of Chris Watts, it is. Personality has many sides and this paper will analyze the personality of Chris Watts through the theories of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud

The Persona and the Shadow: Jungian Analysis of Chris Watts

Persona is the public image of someone, and the topic of persona comes up in Carl Jung’s personality theory. The original word persona means mask, so we wear the mask in public to impose a certain image about us: father, mother, chief, artist, official, president of republic, etc. Persona is therefore a result of social adaptation that plays an important role in dealing with peers. The difficulty with the persona arises only when one becomes so closely identified with his role that he loses all sense of self. At this point the damage is surely done he will be entirely unaware of any distinction between himself and the world in which he lives. The shadow is simply the dark side of someone’s personality, the dark side/shadow feature may be also equaled with the Freudian personal unconsciousness . It comprises everything one repressed because is rejected by the superego. Freud linked these repressed contents mainly with the sexual drives. Therefore, the shadow has almost always a sexual component. In addition to Christopher watts displaying signs of Carl Jung’s theory, he also displayed signs of Sigmund Freuds theory referencing ID, Ego and Super go. The id is the most basic part of the personality. It also represents our most animalistic urges, like the desire for food and sex. The id seeks instant gratification for our wants and needs. If these needs or wants are not met, a person can become tense, anxious, or angry. The ego deals with reality, trying to meet the desires of the id in a way that is socially acceptable in the world. This may mean delaying gratification and helping to get rid of the tension the id feels if a desire is not met right away. The superego develops last, and is based on morals and judgement about right and wrong. Even though the superego and the ego may reach the same decision about something, the superego’s reason for that decision is based more on moral values, while the ego’s decision is based more on what others will think or what the consequences of an action could be on the individual. (your dictionary.com) cite it

Crime scenes can reveal a lot about personality , and personality can be defined in many ways due to the individual and unique aspects of personality. With this knowledge it is still occurring that there is yet to be a definitive answer for what personality is and how it comes into being. Generally, personality can be defined as the relatively constant, individual and unique characteristics and traits which present themselves to others in different circumstances. Theories have been proposed as to what triggers someone to become a murderer, in the case of Christopher watts, both carl Jung theory’s and Sigmund friend theory can be applied from the results of his past and current actions . Personas are fictional characters or a role one may play , Christopher watts was a man with many roles some of the roles he took on were loyal husband, perfect father, and innocent victim.

The persona theory is on for display in Christopher watts you tube video posted for the world to see, even his wife commented on it unaware of what her future held she commented “great job Christopher, great info”. In the video Christopher is saying how “Even at the job, you might meet a new person, and it could strengthen into something else and weaken the bond you have with the partner you have”, unaware of future events , this man was secretly speaking his truth of his double life.

A key feature of the Persona series is the ability of its characters to summon the power of their “persona” to help them fight in battle. One battle Chris watts faced was trying to convince his wife regularly he was in love with her was not having an affair , for a long time he was able to convince her till after their family trip things started to unravel. His persona assisted him with great success for many years to hid all of his lives about his double life with his mistress.

If there is any one thing you can know in this universe, surely it is who you are. With that being said Carl Jung theory of the shadow theory and how it relates to Christopher Watts is presented. Not everyone wants to be exposed but it is important to take the time to understand and listen when ones shadow is discovered. Due to the terrible consequences that can emerge at both the level of the individual and of society when we fail to recognize the shadow importance one must strive to recognize our shadow qualities and to integrate them into our conscious awareness. The shadow theory is discovered after much research on this case. Christopher watch has posted many you tube shows, in one particular he says how “a child can help repair” a relationship. He also spoke about the importance of resolving conflicts by communicating. “Don’t keep things bottled up because it will later come back to bite you,” he warned.” Exactly as watts says in his video he is living. The shadow is expressed through his affairs becoming known and the side effects from that exposure , and his lies coming unraveled after the cops apply the “pause effect” which asking him questions in the interrogation room about the wife and children whereabouts.

The Role of Social Media: A Facade of Perfection

In relation to the shadow theory just because people look ok on the outside doesn’t mean in reality they truly are. On social media shannan displayed her family as the perfect couple and to many it seemed like they had a perfect marriage. During their marriage shanann would spend most of the summer in North Carolina with relatives, and as time passed Christopher spent more and more time with his new girlfriend, and his wife noticed him growing distant. Those who could view shannan’s Facebook would see post saying thing such as “ You do so much every day for us and take such great care of us. You are the reason I was brave enough to agree to number 3!’ , desperately trying to salvage their relationship shannan would continue to post more on Facebook publicly and send engaging and inviting text to Christopher as her concerns grew. Even with all of her work to salvage their relationship, Christopher was no longer interested in staying in the marriage, Christopher had moved on. Christopher had been having an affair with his coworker, Nichol Kessinger, what drew him to Kessinger was the feeling that she was pursuing him, instead of the other way around.

When Nichol Kessinger started dating Christopher Watts, he appeared to be a soft-spoken man and a thoughtful father who was at the end of divorce proceedings. She noticed that Watts did not wear a wedding ring, and Kessinger, who was single, thought he was attractive. Fast forward a few months later to November , Nichol is interviewed about the murders and stats how she does not think there is a logical explanation for what he did, It’s a senseless act, and it’s horrific.

Id, Ego, and Superego: Freudian Insights into Watts’ Behavior

One way Christopher was successful with displaying his persona was living a double life and applying Sigmund Freuds concepts of id, ego and the super ego. Sigmund Freud originated the concepts of the id, the ego, and the superego, three separate but interacting parts of the human personality that work together to contribute to an individual’s behavior. The id operates on the pleasure principle, which is that every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences. When the id achieves its demands, we experience pleasure when it is denied we experience ‘unpleasure’ or tension.

Christopher had no desire to stay in his marriage with his wife, however he had sexual needs that needed to be met and he wanted them met with both Shannan and Nikol . Christopher met the needs of Sigmund Freuds id theory by meeting his basic needs and / or urges for sex with his mistress Nikol when he no longer had interest with his wife Shannan . Nikol and Christopher relationship was passionate and even while in prison , chris Watts says he is still in love with his mistress and wanted to be with her so much that he resorted to murdering his entire family. Nikol showed chris respect that he didn’t feel like he’d ever been shown before. The id engages in primary process thinking, which is primitive, illogical, irrational, and fantasy oriented. This form of process thinking has no comprehension of objective reality, and is selfish and wishful in nature. The ego operates according to the reality principle, working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or postponing satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of society. Christopher’ s ego was displayed as his relationship with Nikol progressed while he was with his pregnant wife, Christopher loved Nikol like he has never loved anyone else before. At the same time, he loves Shanann although he knows she was not his soulmate or the person he was supposed to be with. The ego deals with reality, trying to meet the desires of the id in a way that is socially acceptable in the world. This may mean delaying gratification and helping to get rid of the tension the id feels if a desire is not met right away. The ego recognizes that other people have needs and wants too, and being selfish isn’t good in the long run. Christopher’s ego not allowing Christopher to be selfish and was the reason he stayed with shannan to keep her happy and the family together . Sigmund Freuds third theory , the Super ego was on display on August 16 , three days after the triple murder. The superego is a complete counterpart to the id. The superego works as the moral conscious of the mind. It tells us what is right and wrong. As the bodies of Christopher’s wife and two kids were uncovered at Anadarko. Watts was arrested, but not before elaborately pretending he had no idea where his family was, and calling multiple TV news channels to beg to the killer for their safe return home. Christopher watts was doing what he believed was morally correct which was to get help publicly to find his wife and kids, however getting the husband and father to show even a little emotion over the murder of his family was a challenge. That is, until Watts finally confessed. Then the tears poured like rain. He was caught. Christopher’s super ego has continued to take place behind bars as he continue his court proceedings, Christopher want to fight the charges because he didn’t want to extend the process or make his and Shanann’s families wade through the court process.

Conclusion: The Complexity of Human Personality

Criminals often have two sides to them, a good and bad but can it be possible to keep one side hidden? In the case of Chris Watts, it is. Personality has many sides and this paper will analyze the personality of Chris Watts through the theories of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. Movies and books are divided into two categories, Fiction and non, to many they couldn’t think the stories about Christopher watts, the perfect husband father and successful businessman could be a cold blooded murder. On Facebook, Chris and Shanann Watts were a couple in love. On her husband’s birthday, Shanann Watts told her Facebook followers, Today I celebrate you! Chris, you are the BEST thing that has ever happened to me, little did she know he would be the thing that kills her. Even after Chris Watts pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him his mother, she still wonders whether he truly committed everything he was accused of. Chris feels like he had a break in reality like he snapped, like he was demon-possessed, he writes in his letter to his mother . Although he is showing his dark side his “shadow” he is still loved by many for the persona he displayed for song as if this murder never occurred. Chris still has the world confused asking themselves how did we miss this? Chris no longer has to put up a persona or hid his ego’s , it is said that now that he is in prison, he has attracted other female admirers who visit him.

Sources

1. http://journalpsyche.org/jungian-model-psyche/
2. https://academyofideas.com/2016/02/introduction-to-carl-jung-individuation-the-shadow-the-persona-and-the-self/
3. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/06/chris-watts-reported-confession-detailed-dr-phil-what-we-know/3078641002/

With thousands of self-help books published under ‘personality’ each year, and with thousands of psychologists, psychiatrists, scientists and psuedo-scientists identifying a nondescript number of personality types and the traits which fall into them, the idea of the personality is something of a modern phenomenon. Particularly in modern history, the contemporary understanding of the ‘personality’ finds its origins in ‘the long era’ (1955 to 1974) with political movements becoming centred around notions of identity: race, gender and sexuality, rather than simply republican or democratic beliefs. These “New Social Movements”, such as the Stonewall Riots (1969) and Civil Rights Movements (1954-1968) as described by Williams and Hoggart (reference?), allowed for a collective intrisic analysis of the self, understanding what we stood for and how we could improve ourselves. Thus, the idea of the ‘personality’ became the common reasoning for seeing ourselves as a self contained consciousness, with unique characterstics and partialities which makes one separate and unique from other people. Whilst this understanding of the personality makes sense, perhaps we as a culture have been mistaken in our comprehension of the personality, and perhaps even the existence of it at all.

Whilst the origins of the word trace back to latin origins, personalis meaning “of a person”, the concept of the personality was first described by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who was the founder of his school of thought, psychoanalysis. Despite his notoriety, Freud was radical in many ways, being one of the first to theorise that the mind was split into different parts, which he named ‘The Tripartite Personality Structure’ (Freud, 1923). The first aspect of the personality he identified was the unconcious ‘Id’, the pleasure principle, which drives our most primal desires such as lust, hunger and and anger. In contrast, the preconcious ‘Super-Ego’, the morality principle, drives decisions which satify our moral judgement and ego-ideal. The final aspect of Freuds personality structure is the ‘Ego’, the reality principle, which is concious and amoral, and the is made up of the combination and compromise of the desires of the previous extremes, to what we understand as our ‘personality’.

Similary, Freud also developed psycho-sexual stages, a timeline of si which he claimed that the first five years of life are crucial in the development of the personality (Freud, 1905). Each stage is focused on what Freud described as fixations of libido, for example, the Oral Stage, where infants aged up to one years old find pleasure in and eating and using their mouths. This is also the time where the Ego develops. Anal, phallic, genital stages follow suit, from ages two to puberty, with each fixation corresponding with the areas on the body respectively. Freud also claimed failure to correctly nativgate these stages results in fixation, for example failure to mature from the anal stage may result anal fixation, and the development of an ‘anal’ personality type, decribed as fickle and retentive.

Despite Sigmund Freud’s complex and seemily well developed theories of the personality, as well as his success, he was not exempt from critism from experimental psychologists, particularly Eysenck, who agreed Freud was “without a doubt, a genius, not of science, but of propaganda, not of rigorous proof, but of persuasion.” (Eynsenck, 1985). Much of Freud’s work is unfalsifiable, and so cannot be used as definitive evidence of the concept of personality. This again reiterates the modern idea of personality, we can all describe what we believe it to be, however it is not so simple to locate it terms of a physical aspect of the human brain.

Another name which is synonymous with the modern concept of personality is Carl Jung (1875-1961). In 1921, Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, first introduced what he described as pyschological types, the idea that one has their own unique personality based on one of two preferences: “each person seems to be energized more by either the external world [extraversion] or the internal world [introversion]” (Jung, 1971).

This was extended by the work of Isabel Myers Briggs, along with her mother Katharine Cook Briggs, who namely developed the ‘Myers-Briggs Type Indicatior’, which classifies people in sixteen personality types, based on four opposing pairs of traits and ones preference towards them (Myers, 1975). Since its first publication in 1975, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI, has been one of the most popular way for identifying personality types, and has been particularly favoured in the world of business, with employers using the MBTI as a way to classify potential employees. CEO Elena Bajics states that this type of personality catagorisation in an office environment can assist managers with team communications and efficiency, “because you will understand how each person works best and what they need to do their job well.” (Bajic, 2015)

The first trait pair identified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, following the work of Jung, is introversion (I) and extraversion (E): the direction in which attention and energy is most easily drawn. An example of this would be during social interaction, a person with an extroverted trait type would focus their energy on interacting with and entertaining the group, whereas an introverted trait type would focus their energy on listening to others as well as inner-reflection. This first pair also raises the first dilemma with Myers-Briggs personality types, particularly with its application in the work place: Western cultures have a bias towards extroverted individuals. In the 1990s, when the Myers-Briggs personality type test went through validation with UK and European distributors, 92% of people said it was better to be extrovert, even though only half of the population is extrovert in the type version. (Cain, 2012). This suggests that the notion of the extroverted trait for some people is not a true representation of their personality type, but rather a social conformation to a desirable way of being, whether it not it reflects their inner beliefs or outwards actions.

The second trait pair identified by the MBTI is sensing (S) and intuition (I), which relates to ways of gathering information. For example, a person with an S personality type would learn new information through hard facts and visable truths, whereas someone with an I type personality would interpret information and add to it using their imagination.

The third trait pair is in relation to the two ways of coming to conclusions, and are identified as thinking (T) and feeling (F). T personality types are firm-minded, skeptical and make decisions based on rationality (although it should be noted that “thinking” should not be confused with intelligence) whereas F personality types are warm and sympathetic, and make decisions based on emotions. The fourth and final trait pair is judging (J) and perceiving (P). This is in relation to ones orientation to the outside world, with J personality types preferring having tasks decided and organized, however P personality types are more spontaneous and do not thrive when their tasks are under time constraints. The combination of preference to each of the four trait pairs determines ones Myers-Briggs Type Indicatior, presented as a combination of the four letters, for example ESTP represents an extraverted-sensing-thinking-perceiving personality type.

Whilst it is understood each type has its own strengths and weaknesses, the theory is also able to identify types most without championing one over the other (with the Western extroversion bias being an obvious exception). However, a common critism of the MBTI is that one’s personality and traits are not so black and white. For example, the use of traits such as thinking (T) and feeling (F) may be context-dependent, i.e you may be inclined to be more warm and sympathetic (F) when dealing with emotional problem with a co-worker rather than analytical and firm (T). Similarly, the idea of the two trait pairs, and the concept of sixteen personality types may be an oversimplifcation of the complexity of the human condition, and the way we behave in dynamic social situations.

In reference to these social situations, another theory in relation to personality called symbolic interactionism was developed by philosopher, sociologist and psychologist George Herbert Mead (1863-1931). This theory, also known as the idea of the “Looking-Glass Self”, suggests we cannot know ourselves directly, but only through reflections of our interactions with others. It contradicts the idea that our personalities exists within a self-contained conciousness, as our capacity for thought, action and beliefs are influenced (yet not directly caused) by social interaction. Mead theorised that symbolic interaction was contructed of three parts: the mind, the self and society. The mind, in this case, is the internal process by which we use symbols, i.e thoughts and language, to create meaning around our physical and abstract worlds. The self, or “the looking-glass self”, refers to our ability to see the way others perceive us, whether this is in line with our internal minds or not. Finally, society, is the platform on which all of these internal and external nteractions take place. Mead also highlighted the importance of society on personality, as those from impoverished backgrounds, lower social standings, and those affected by the abuse of power are unable to actualise their minds and selves in a healthy way (1934).

Further in relation to symbolic interactionism, psychologist Mark Freeman argued that the theory should be applied in conjunction with the common understanding of our sense of self: “don’t most of us continue to posit… that there are some things that are really ‘us’ and other things that are not?” (1993). Here, Freeman argues that whilst symbolic interactionism is not necessarily wrong, it could look at how to accommodate the idea of the “real me”. Whilst Meads theory argues that we might be different selves for different societal groups, we tend to privilege one of those groups more than others, more specifically the group where we don’t see our self as “acting” but as our “real” selves. Similarly, Freeman identifies how we take traits, attitudes and behaviours from our personality in these different societal groups and consider that our “real self”.

Taking these perspectives and studies into conclusion, whilst there is nothing inheritly wrong with the notion of personality, it would be naïve to suggest it can be identified and classified into one, or several, coherent ideas. Who we are is not restricted to our physical bodies or minds, but our sense of self is something which is shared across our relationships, society and culture. As suggested by Mead; the self is never one thing, it is in a “constant state of becoming”.