Carl Gustav Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was born on July 26, 1875, in Kesswil, Switzerland.During his childhood, Jung preferred to be left alone to play by himself. He was happiest when he was in isolation with his thoughts.As Jung grew older, his keen interest in a large variety of sciences, and the history of religion made the choice of a career quite difficult. However, he finally decided on medicine, which he studied at the University of Basel (1895–1900). He received his medical degree from the University of Zurich in 1902. Later he studied psychology (the scientific study of the mind and its processes) in Paris, France.

In 1903 Jung married Emma Rauschenbach. She was his loyal companion and scientific coworker until her death in 1955. The couple had five children, and lived in Küsnacht on the Lake of Zurich.

When Jung read Sigmund Freud's (1856–1939) Interpretation of Dreams, he found his own ideas and observations to be basically confirmed and furthered. He sent his publication Studies in Word Association (1904) to Freud, and this was the beginning of their work together, as well as their friendship, which lasted from 1907 to 1913. Jung was eager to explore the secrets of the unconscious psyche expressed by dreaming, fantasies, myths, fairy tales, superstition, and occultism (belief in supernatural powers or forces).


For him the unconscious not only is a disturbing factor causing psychic illnesses but also is basically the source of man's creativeness and the roots of a person's consciousness. With such ideas Jung came increasingly into conflict with Freud, who regarded Jung's ideas as unscientific. Jung accused Freud of narrow-mindedness; Freud and his followers disapproved of Jung for his emphasis of the spiritual aspects of the psyche.
Jung was bothered by his break with Freud. He began a deepened self-analysis (an examination of oneself) in order to gain all the honesty and firmness for his own journey into discovering the mysteries of the unconscious psyche.

To Jung, the religious symbols and phenomenology (a system of beliefs developed by studying peoples understanding and awareness of themselves) of Buddhism and Hinduism and the teachings of Zen Buddhism and Confucianism all expressed differentiated experiences on the way to man's inner world, a world which was badly neglected by Western civilization. Jung also searched for traditions in Western culture, which made up for its one-sided outgoing development toward reason and technology. He found these traditions in Gnosticism (belief that personal freedom comes through spiritual knowledge and understanding), Christian mysticism (the belief that instinct and spiritual feeling are the ways to find God), and, above all, occultism (knowledge or use of supernatural powers).

Of prime importance to Jung was the detailing of the stages of inner development and of the growth of the personality, which he termed the "process of individuation." He described a strong impulse from the unconscious to guide the individual toward its most complete uniqueness.

Jung lived for his explorations, his writings, and his psychological practice, which he had to give up in 1944 due to a severe heart attack. His career included the professorship of medical psychology at the University of Basel and the titular (title without the actual position) professorship of philosophy from 1933 until 1942 on the faculty of philosophical and political sciences of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
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