Carl Gustav Jung, born in the twentieth century, was a Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist, and analytical psychology founder: Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy Essay, MU, Ireland

Carl Gustav Jung, born in the twentieth century, was a Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist, and analytical psychology founder.

Jung’s psychology is based on the contrast of going to the descent, meaning into the inner world to come back to the ascent, the external world of the client.

Also, Snowden states that ‘the individual psyche is always changing as it seeks growth and wholeness.’

The psyche is a culmination of how we interpret the world.

Moreover, Jung adopted the Freudian theory of the personal unconscious as he viewed the conscious mind as the ego; the child’s unconscious consisted of the collective and personal unconscious.

Jung referred to the ego when describing the more conscious aspect of the personality, the part of the psyche that chooses perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and memories that may enter our conscious awareness.

Stevens (1999) states that ‘the ego is the centre of consciousness and is responsible for our continuing sense of identity.’

Further, the personal unconscious consists of ‘all the acquisitions of personal life, everything forgotten, repressed, subliminally perceived, thought, felt.

For Jung, exploring the unconscious was crucial to gain personal insight.

According to Jung, the personal unconscious contains various complexes, while the collective unconscious contains archetypes.

The widely recognised archetypes are the shadow, the persona, the animus, the anima, and the self.

The persona archetype is the mask a person wears to hide their true nature from society.

The shadow is an unconscious part of the personality that contains weaknesses and other aspects of personality that a person cannot admit to having.

The anima is the unconscious feminine element of a man’s personality, and the animus is the masculine aspect of a woman’s personality.

The self is the central archetype and actual midpoint of the personality.

On the other hand, where the personal unconscious is unique for each individual, the collective unconscious is not an ‘individual acquisition but rather the functioning of the inherited brain structure, which in its broad outlines is the same in all human beings ‘

Therefore, the collective unconscious represents the shared experiences, emotions and memories inherited from previous generations.

Jung believed that we were born with a built-in human developmental programme, which is buried deep within the collective unconscious.

Also, another key concept of the Jungian approach is the notion of individuation.

Jung understood individuation to begin in the second half of life.

Hence, one can reach and understand self-realization; one has reached one of the most exclusive archetypes.

Furthermore, the therapeutic objective of Jungian therapy is to assist the client in reconciling unbalanced aspects of their personality, which may present in several ways of psychological disturbance, for example, addictions, anxieties, depression, inappropriate attachments to unsuitable partners, obsessions, or physical illness.

Therefore, by understanding Jung’s theory, a therapist can help the client gradually strip away the shadow side of their personality, the negative aspect they need to work on.

It is a process of individuation in which the client is helped towards the conscious

realisation and fulfilment of their unique being and to help them see that they are part of a greater collective unconscious.