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Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography
A biography of the famous psychologist examines Carl Jung's early career as an admirer of Freud, the bitter argument that made the men rivals, and the development of his highly influential theories
640 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1996
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1263 people want to read
About the author
Frank McLynn
39 books102 followersFrank McLynn is an English author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley.
McLynn was educated at Wadham College, Oxford and the University of London. He was Alistair Horne Research Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford (1987–88) and was visiting professor in the Department of Literature at the University of Strathclyde (1996–2001) and professorial fellow at Goldsmiths College London (2000 - 2002) before becoming a full-time writer.
McLynn was educated at Wadham College, Oxford and the University of London. He was Alistair Horne Research Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford (1987–88) and was visiting professor in the Department of Literature at the University of Strathclyde (1996–2001) and professorial fellow at Goldsmiths College London (2000 - 2002) before becoming a full-time writer.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 4, 2014
One question kept surfacing, as I read this. Why is the author spending all this time on a biography if he has such a low opinion of Jung? Well, it was interesting, informative, and just a bit one-sided. Believe half of what you read, and none of what you hear. Overall, left me wanting to read another biography just to get a more rounded picture.
July 8, 2011
quite comprehensive, presents Jung with warts and all. Left me wanting to read a biography of Emma Jung.....
June 14, 2016
Found this book boring. ;( i cut through it with scissors and did find a few enjoyable pages to read.
January 19, 2022
There was a lot of archaic language, and I found myself having to check the definition every few pages . Propably the major criticism of the book, and it is also littered with French and Latin adages which I found very distressing to read and having to look up every second. I guess this book will have improved my vocabulary somewhat, perhaps.
The author seems to have understood Jung's corpus quite well which I am pretty impressed by. He has deeply studied the Jungian concepts, probably better than I have. At times he sounds like he is almost influenced by the Jungian doctrinal system. He paints a very negative picture of Jung as a misogynist, pessimist, anti-semite, racist-but-not-racist, fascist friendly, homophobe, pseudoscientific, unoriginal, literary obscurantist, and a glutton. It's a very damning biography and it intrigues me how the author could've spent so much researching the writings and life of a person a person he clearly found so deeply morally reprehensible. It's a fascinating read, but also an exhausting one, given how awful of a person Jung sounds like, he is described as this tyrannical figure who abuses women, and lives a life leaching off the money of his wife in order to fund his religio-mystical endeavours. A bourgeois elitist, who speculated on mythology and theological matters and had a contempt for group think. It's a shame, he wasn't that into the social sciences of sociology and cultural anthropology, in understanding cultures. He was merely an orientalist spectator who was massively wrong on so many levels, yet his aficionados seem to adore him. Much like a cult figure. And ethically he just sounds like an awful person who only conceded to his terrible behaviour when he was reprimanded for it. He was very selfish, self entitled and would get bored of his patients and was only attracted to analysands that had archetypal and mythological themes in their dreams. It's so funny and sad how in Jung's own writings, he never addresses his failings as a person. Yet he accused Freud of being tyrannical and dogmatic. I find Jung equally reprehensible to the projections of which he criticised.
I would still recommend his works to be read by newcomers and oldcomers, but I think Freud overall was a much better writer than Jung. In conclusion though, Frank Mclynn paints a very ugly picture albeit intelligent picture of Jung. Its a very depressing read. And it gets into how the cult of psychoanalysis became mobilised and was galvanised in the early 20th Century.
The author seems to have understood Jung's corpus quite well which I am pretty impressed by. He has deeply studied the Jungian concepts, probably better than I have. At times he sounds like he is almost influenced by the Jungian doctrinal system. He paints a very negative picture of Jung as a misogynist, pessimist, anti-semite, racist-but-not-racist, fascist friendly, homophobe, pseudoscientific, unoriginal, literary obscurantist, and a glutton. It's a very damning biography and it intrigues me how the author could've spent so much researching the writings and life of a person a person he clearly found so deeply morally reprehensible. It's a fascinating read, but also an exhausting one, given how awful of a person Jung sounds like, he is described as this tyrannical figure who abuses women, and lives a life leaching off the money of his wife in order to fund his religio-mystical endeavours. A bourgeois elitist, who speculated on mythology and theological matters and had a contempt for group think. It's a shame, he wasn't that into the social sciences of sociology and cultural anthropology, in understanding cultures. He was merely an orientalist spectator who was massively wrong on so many levels, yet his aficionados seem to adore him. Much like a cult figure. And ethically he just sounds like an awful person who only conceded to his terrible behaviour when he was reprimanded for it. He was very selfish, self entitled and would get bored of his patients and was only attracted to analysands that had archetypal and mythological themes in their dreams. It's so funny and sad how in Jung's own writings, he never addresses his failings as a person. Yet he accused Freud of being tyrannical and dogmatic. I find Jung equally reprehensible to the projections of which he criticised.
I would still recommend his works to be read by newcomers and oldcomers, but I think Freud overall was a much better writer than Jung. In conclusion though, Frank Mclynn paints a very ugly picture albeit intelligent picture of Jung. Its a very depressing read. And it gets into how the cult of psychoanalysis became mobilised and was galvanised in the early 20th Century.
September 25, 2018
Interesting but not riveting.
September 11, 2024
A RELATIVELY UNSYMPATHETIC PORTRAYAL
Frank McLynn has written other books such as 'Napoleon: A Biography,' 'Marcus Aurelius: A Life,' 'Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1996 book, "this book does not purport to be a definitive biography of C.G. Jung. Such a work will not be possible until all the relevant documentation is released into the public domain... Nevertheless, I would be surprised if future discoveries significantly alter our perception of Jung's doctrines and their implications. Future research... will no doubt uncover the names of Jung's many unknown mistresses, the dates of the liaisons and much more along these lines. Whether it will revolutionize our understanding of his doctrines is more doubtful." (Pg. xi)
He states, "Jung's 'struggle with God' was an internalized form of his struggle to jettison the theological and psychic baggage of his father [a minister], and his contempt for traditional Christianity an aspect of his contempt for the man who had allowed that dispensation to immobilize him... At his Communion, Jung felt no spiritual contact with God, but merely a numbing void, and felt the entire ceremony to be a meaningless hoax... he was convinced that it was precisely because he was a 'chosen one' that he had been cut off from his father's church and the faith he and other Christians so blithely shared. He, Carl Jung, had received God's grace through moral strenuousness, not the sterile formulae preached by parsons." (Pg. 29-30) Later, he notes, "Although highly sceptical about Christianity in general, Jung was always far more sympathetic to Catholicism than to Protestantism." (Pg. 413)
As a student, Jung attended séances (pg. 40-41). After noting that Jung became a "compulsive womanizer" (Pg. 80), McLynn comments, "Why did Jung chafe so fretfully under the yoke of monogamy? The key must be sought in his relationship with his mother... she had been absent at a critical time in his life and important 'imprinting' had been done by the maid whose beauty Jung always remembered." (Pg. 81)
He contends, "Overwhelmingly, the evidence suggests that Jung married Emma for money, and that he had a 'money-complex.'" (Pg. 83) Later, he notes that "Freud frequently made the charge of anti-Semitism against Jung." (Pg. 116)
He states, "During 1913-1914, when the break with Freud was becoming absolute, Jung became ever more agitated and unbalanced in his mind, to the point where he eventually accused Freud of being the Devil. This was part of a general process of mental disintegration which took him to the edge of the abyss." (Pg. 233)
He observes, "How are we to interpret Jung's mental illness during these years?... All experts are agreed that Jung's skirmish with insanity was a "near miss," but disagree on the diagnostic model that would explain his plight." (Pg. 240) He adds, "this episode in 1916 suggests that Jung reached crisis point in that year, surmounted the perils and then proceeded through dangerous, though no longer calamitous, psychic seas to safe anchorage some time in 1918." (Pg. 243)
He argues, "one cannot be half in and half out of science. The best approach for those who claim to 'go beyond' it to embrace metaphysics or mysticism wholeheartedly. Acres of print could have been saved if Jung had come clean and admitted that he was a prophet. But such an admission would have made him vulnerable to certain aspects of his own theories, namely the danger of confusing the individual with the collective psyche." (Pg. 316)
He also states, "The question of Jung's relationship to feminism and his possible misogyny bears further examination. Numerous aspects of his thought have given offence to doyennes of the women's movement: his apparent willingness to define a woman's identity in terms of her value to men; his statement that there was merit in terms of patristic conundrum about whether women had souls; his likening the feminine principle to yin or emptiness; and most of all, his fulminations against 'animus hounds'... it is not surprising that many ingenious attempts have been made to rescue the founding father from the allegedly 'sexist' hook on which he had impaled himself." (Pg. 340) He also adds, "There is no disguising the admiration in Jung's writings on [Hitler] in the 1930s." (Pg. 353)
Not a very sympathetic biography, there is nevertheless a lot of information herein that will be of great interest to anyone studying Jung's life and ideas.
Frank McLynn has written other books such as 'Napoleon: A Biography,' 'Marcus Aurelius: A Life,' 'Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1996 book, "this book does not purport to be a definitive biography of C.G. Jung. Such a work will not be possible until all the relevant documentation is released into the public domain... Nevertheless, I would be surprised if future discoveries significantly alter our perception of Jung's doctrines and their implications. Future research... will no doubt uncover the names of Jung's many unknown mistresses, the dates of the liaisons and much more along these lines. Whether it will revolutionize our understanding of his doctrines is more doubtful." (Pg. xi)
He states, "Jung's 'struggle with God' was an internalized form of his struggle to jettison the theological and psychic baggage of his father [a minister], and his contempt for traditional Christianity an aspect of his contempt for the man who had allowed that dispensation to immobilize him... At his Communion, Jung felt no spiritual contact with God, but merely a numbing void, and felt the entire ceremony to be a meaningless hoax... he was convinced that it was precisely because he was a 'chosen one' that he had been cut off from his father's church and the faith he and other Christians so blithely shared. He, Carl Jung, had received God's grace through moral strenuousness, not the sterile formulae preached by parsons." (Pg. 29-30) Later, he notes, "Although highly sceptical about Christianity in general, Jung was always far more sympathetic to Catholicism than to Protestantism." (Pg. 413)
As a student, Jung attended séances (pg. 40-41). After noting that Jung became a "compulsive womanizer" (Pg. 80), McLynn comments, "Why did Jung chafe so fretfully under the yoke of monogamy? The key must be sought in his relationship with his mother... she had been absent at a critical time in his life and important 'imprinting' had been done by the maid whose beauty Jung always remembered." (Pg. 81)
He contends, "Overwhelmingly, the evidence suggests that Jung married Emma for money, and that he had a 'money-complex.'" (Pg. 83) Later, he notes that "Freud frequently made the charge of anti-Semitism against Jung." (Pg. 116)
He states, "During 1913-1914, when the break with Freud was becoming absolute, Jung became ever more agitated and unbalanced in his mind, to the point where he eventually accused Freud of being the Devil. This was part of a general process of mental disintegration which took him to the edge of the abyss." (Pg. 233)
He observes, "How are we to interpret Jung's mental illness during these years?... All experts are agreed that Jung's skirmish with insanity was a "near miss," but disagree on the diagnostic model that would explain his plight." (Pg. 240) He adds, "this episode in 1916 suggests that Jung reached crisis point in that year, surmounted the perils and then proceeded through dangerous, though no longer calamitous, psychic seas to safe anchorage some time in 1918." (Pg. 243)
He argues, "one cannot be half in and half out of science. The best approach for those who claim to 'go beyond' it to embrace metaphysics or mysticism wholeheartedly. Acres of print could have been saved if Jung had come clean and admitted that he was a prophet. But such an admission would have made him vulnerable to certain aspects of his own theories, namely the danger of confusing the individual with the collective psyche." (Pg. 316)
He also states, "The question of Jung's relationship to feminism and his possible misogyny bears further examination. Numerous aspects of his thought have given offence to doyennes of the women's movement: his apparent willingness to define a woman's identity in terms of her value to men; his statement that there was merit in terms of patristic conundrum about whether women had souls; his likening the feminine principle to yin or emptiness; and most of all, his fulminations against 'animus hounds'... it is not surprising that many ingenious attempts have been made to rescue the founding father from the allegedly 'sexist' hook on which he had impaled himself." (Pg. 340) He also adds, "There is no disguising the admiration in Jung's writings on [Hitler] in the 1930s." (Pg. 353)
Not a very sympathetic biography, there is nevertheless a lot of information herein that will be of great interest to anyone studying Jung's life and ideas.
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January 10, 2021A huge volume from what I recall. Almost none of the content comes to mind and what does seems of little importance. Jung had influence and still has. Even so, I do not carry his effect.
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February 20, 2013To dream is to be awake.
October 28, 2013
Аниела Яфе - без нея автобиографията не би била достъпно четиво за хора като мен!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews