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Analytical Psychology, Its Theory and Practice: The Tavistock Lectures
by C.G. Jung
by C.G. Jung
A very accessible introduction into the ideas of Jung, interweaved with some remarkable eye openers and original thoughts.
First Jung explains his ideas about the structure of the mind, in this transcription of a series of lectures given in 1935. He claims that the conciousness forms but a very small part. It drags 'a historical tail of weaknesses and hesitations' behind it. The strong characteristics of a person have weak counterparts, the inferior functions. An intellectual likes complex rational thoughts, but his feelings are very undifferentiated. He has strong feelings and is easily overwhelmed by them. Jung gives the example of professors and Germans, who find 'gemuetlichkeit' extremely important, everything must be feeling all right. The French on the other hand, don't mind complex emotions. As long as you don't speak in rational paradoxes, all is ok for them.
Jung then goes on to explain that he is not surprised that fascism is rising in Germany. As a matter of fact, he predicted several years before that something like this would happen. 'In a time, so full of difficulties and so disorientated as ours, it is only natural that the messiah-complex is surfacing', Jung says. It is an archetypical image of the collective unconsciousness. It is contagious and cannot easily be resisted. 'Fascism is the Latin form of religion.'
The second part of the book is about explaining dreams. Jung shows of his enormous amount of knowledge about myths, folk tales and religion. From the Greeks, to the East, to Christianity.
He concludes his lectures by covering the issue of transference. In his idea transference is a special case of projection in which feelings are unconsciously transferred from one person to the other. Personal transference can be solved by making it conscious. Archetypical transference cannot be cleared, it is a normal human function that people cannot do without. The archetypical content can only be objectified, so that a person looks for it inside himself and not in somebody or something else. Religions are a good way to structure this process, according to Jung, as they are 'therapeutic systems'. As most people these days cannot follow mass religions any more (because they know too much), they must find there own personal forms of religion. Only in that way they manage to stay sane.
First Jung explains his ideas about the structure of the mind, in this transcription of a series of lectures given in 1935. He claims that the conciousness forms but a very small part. It drags 'a historical tail of weaknesses and hesitations' behind it. The strong characteristics of a person have weak counterparts, the inferior functions. An intellectual likes complex rational thoughts, but his feelings are very undifferentiated. He has strong feelings and is easily overwhelmed by them. Jung gives the example of professors and Germans, who find 'gemuetlichkeit' extremely important, everything must be feeling all right. The French on the other hand, don't mind complex emotions. As long as you don't speak in rational paradoxes, all is ok for them.
Jung then goes on to explain that he is not surprised that fascism is rising in Germany. As a matter of fact, he predicted several years before that something like this would happen. 'In a time, so full of difficulties and so disorientated as ours, it is only natural that the messiah-complex is surfacing', Jung says. It is an archetypical image of the collective unconsciousness. It is contagious and cannot easily be resisted. 'Fascism is the Latin form of religion.'
The second part of the book is about explaining dreams. Jung shows of his enormous amount of knowledge about myths, folk tales and religion. From the Greeks, to the East, to Christianity.
He concludes his lectures by covering the issue of transference. In his idea transference is a special case of projection in which feelings are unconsciously transferred from one person to the other. Personal transference can be solved by making it conscious. Archetypical transference cannot be cleared, it is a normal human function that people cannot do without. The archetypical content can only be objectified, so that a person looks for it inside himself and not in somebody or something else. Religions are a good way to structure this process, according to Jung, as they are 'therapeutic systems'. As most people these days cannot follow mass religions any more (because they know too much), they must find there own personal forms of religion. Only in that way they manage to stay sane.
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