On Analytic Approach

The theory of psychoanalysis that was developed by Carl Jung, focuses on the concept of the collective unconscious and the importance of balancing opposing forces within the personality. He defined the unconscious to include both the individual's own unconscious and as the inherited, partly in the form of archetypes, from his or her ancestors (the "collective unconscious"). He classified people into introvert and extravert types and further distinguished them according to four primary functions of the mind — thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition — one or more of which predominated in any given person.

Libido, according to Jung, is the psychic energy that propels us to perceiving, thinking, feeling, and wishing, that strongly influences one’s life. He developed three principles that would explain one’s behaviors, these are: the Principles of the Opposites, Equivalence, and Entropy. Principle of the Opposites is the influencing our decision in thinking the opposite way. And that the primary motivator of our behavior is the opposite of the wishes that we have. The Principle of Equivalence lies on the basis that if the psychic value in our life weakens or disappears, that psychic energy is transformed elsewhere in the personality. While the Principle of Entropy works on the exchange of energy that occurs within the personality that results into homeostasis from the stronger to the weaker, to which eventually, the stronger wins.

The collective unconscious according to Jung is the storehouse of ancestral experiences since the dawn of time and common to all humans. It is something that is shared by all humans, and that we encounter them through symbols in all aspects of our lives like in dreams, art, and religion among all others. Contained in the collective unconscious are the archetypes, these are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. The theory’s foundation is on the collective unconscious that all humans experience since the beginning of time. According to Jung, there are things that we all humans share, like traditions, arts, religion, and architecture. I have read an article about Carl Jung and his childhood. It was stated in the article that when he was young, he performed a ceremonial act that is similar to other culture in other parts of the world like the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim or tjurungas of Australia, which has inspired him on his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious.

The concepts well interrelate with one another but is distinct from each one, just like his concept on the archetypes and the collective unconscious. According to Jung, to which I would agree, he said that human psyche is religious in nature. The male and female principle, or the anima or animus, is something that is innate. Just like God is, He could be as punishing like a man, but very compassionate as a woman. Just like what the Bible says, man and woman are created in his Likeness. So, it is only likely that we, as humans, share both these qualities of male and female.

The theory also shares to us concepts and terms like extraversion and introversion to which we are all familiar. Along with those concepts are his concept of the collective unconscious and archetypes, libido, and ego. Libido according to Jung is different from that of Freud. In Jung’s theory, libido is the psychic energy that leads us to perceiving, thinking, feeling, and wishing, that strongly influences one’s life. His concept on ego is also a little bit different from Freud’s and common people. To Jung, ego is the center of consciousness, or our awareness of ourselves, while Freud’s is on libido being the psychic energy that propels us to pleasurable things. Their use of terms serves and supports their own theories. On the other hand, ego in layman’s term is self-esteem.

His concept on the types of personality and its function on thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting, gives us a good prediction of how might a person deal with a situation. All persons belong to one or another class and these differences are assumed to be inborn. If we can successfully tell a person whether he or she is introverted or extraverted, we would then know how a person might think in a situation and how he would react to it.

The Myers-Briggs type Indicator is based on Jung’s theory on the two types of attitudes, the introverted and the extraverted type. The success of this test tells us that Jung’s concept on introversion and extraversion can be tested quantitatively, and would make a good prediction of a person’s behavior.

Delving into the unconscious mind is rather quite difficult and cannot be tested emperically. And we cannot use direct approaches into understanding the human psyche. What Jung proposed is to look at dreams, folklore, and myths into better understanding the human psyche. And what his theory could offer us, is a hypothesis on healing and personality development.

Jung is considered to be an influential thinker and the founder of analytic psychology. It has inspired many psychologists into employing dream analysis on clinical work. After Freud’s theory on the psychosexual development, Jung’s theory is a breath of fresh air.

The theory is most useful to laypersons, especially on his concept of introversion and extraversion. With this, we can understand how a person close to us, like a friend maybe, may have reacted to a specific situation, or his thoughts and opinions on a subject by finding out which is his major attitude type. And although he isn’t the first one to analyze dreams, he has been known to be the pioneer in the field of dream analysis. His theory on the collective unconscious instigates us towards dream analysis and understanding folklores.