Carl Jung
Swiss psychiatrist (1875–1961) who broke from Freud to develop analytical psychology, centered on the collective unconscious, universal archetypes, and the individuation process as the goal of psychological development.
Jung began as Freud's designated successor but broke away over a fundamental disagreement: Freud saw the unconscious as a personal repository of repressed sexual experience; Jung saw it as containing a deeper layer, the collective unconscious, shared by all humanity, populated by universal patterns called archetypes.
Archetypes, the Shadow, the Anima/Animus, the Self, the Hero, the Great Mother, are not learned but inherited as psychological tendencies. They manifest across cultures in myths, dreams, and religious symbols. This is why the hero's journey appears in every civilization, why dragon myths span cultures that never contacted each other, why death-and-resurrection narratives are universal.
The goal of Jungian psychology is individuation: the integration of all aspects of the self, conscious and unconscious, light and shadow, into a coherent whole. This is the opposite of Freudian repression; it requires confronting and integrating, not suppressing, the dark dimensions of the psyche.
From the Predictive History framework, Jung provides the key to understanding why mythology is not pre-scientific superstition but the symbolic language in which civilizations process their deepest truths.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the collective unconscious? ＋
Jung's concept of a layer of the unconscious that is not personal but universal, shared by all humans, containing archetypes (the Hero, Shadow, Anima) that manifest across cultures in myths, dreams, and religious symbols.
What are Jungian archetypes? ＋
Universal psychological patterns inherited as tendencies, the Shadow (rejected aspects of self), the Anima/Animus (contra-sexual element), the Hero, the Wise Old Man, the Great Mother. They structure how humans experience fundamental life situations.