Jungian Psychology

This week we’re straying off the beaten philosophical trail to explore the complex, compelling, and controversial ideas of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. Jung was one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century who broke away from Freudian psychology by developing his own ideas about personality types and the “collective unconscious.” What was he talking about, and what relevance does it have for us today?

The topics for this session will be as varied as Jung’s work itself was, and will include the following topics:

Dream Analysis: Do dreams signify anything, and if so, what?
Personality: What are the dimensions and aspects of personality? How do “extroverts” and “introverts” differ?
Stages of Life: Does our psychology develop through distinct life stages?
Archaic Humans: Did ancient humans think in fundamentally different ways than us moderns?
The “Collective Unconscious”: Do all human beings share innate, unconscious instincts whose effects can be seen in striking similarities between the symbols and mythologies of different cultures?

For this session, I’ll be working from his essays as collected in the book “Modern Man in Search of a Soul,” as well as Chapter 10 from his book “Psychological Types” about Extraversion and Introversion.

For our discussion of extraversion vs. introversion, you can access the chapter at this link:
[https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm ](https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm)

And the essays from “Modern Man in Search of a Soul” I’ll discuss include:

• “Dream Analysis”
• “A Psychological Theory of Types”
• “The Stages of Life”
• “Archaic Man”
• “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man”

Hope to see you there!