Three Minute Philosophy: Carl Jung
Brief Bio
Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and modern-age philosopher who was born in July of 1875. His teachings focused primarily on the idea of Individuation, which is the goal of ultimate self-understanding by integrating one's conscious and unconscious states. Many describe it as the ultimate guide to understanding who you truly are!
??FUN FACT??! Carl Jung wrote a whole book about UFOs!
Teachings
As one can probably tell, this Individualization process I mentioned above is quite deep and complex, but has a very powerful meaning.
Let's first break it down into its main components: ego, persona, the shadow, and the Anima/Animus, which all make up the self.
Ego
Our ego tells the story of who we are and what we stand for as individuals, and lies in our conscious realm. We accumulate this knowledge of ourselves over our whole life by experiencing new things and forming relationships with different people.
Persona
The persona is the type of mask each of us wears in order to conform with society. It is the role we play when trying to fit in. Our persona is how we want the world to perceive us as individuals. As well as ego, it lies in the conscious realm.
Shadow
Our shadow can be described as our dark side. It lies in the unconscious state and is comprised of our undesirable characteristics and qualities that we want to keep repressed. Many are not aware that they have a shadow and frequently dismiss it and brush it off. But this should not be the case. Jung stated that:
"If the repressed tendencies, the shadow as I call them, were obviously evil, there would be no problem whatever. But the shadow is merely somewhat inferior, primitive, unadapted, and awkward; not wholly bad. It even contains childish or primitive qualities which would in a way vitalize and embellish human existence, but convention forbids this!"
Carl Jung ??
Or in other words, though our dark qualities may portray a negative view of ourselves, we should learn to confront and understand them, which will allow one to be able to, not only suppress them, but get rid of them for good.
Anima/Animus
Jung states that in every male lies feminine qualities (the Anima) and in every female lies masculine qualities (the Animus). Similar to shadow (both of which lie in the unconscious realm), many, both men and women, frequently choose to suppress these characteristics, yet doing so throws away the opportunity to learn more about our inner selves and which qualities are and are not optimal to our lives.
Self: Our Personality's Core | Putting it all Together
The self is the core and foundation of our personality and binds the conscious and unconscious world inside us. It incorporates all of the components mentioned above and truly defines who we are on the inside.
Now that we have an understanding of each component, the Individualization process should be much more clear. It is the process of merging the characteristics of the unconscious realm into our personality (or in other words, getting a deeper understanding of our self).
Here's a quote Jung stated that explains what I'm talking about quite nicely:
“But if we understand anything of the unconscious, we know that it cannot be swallowed. We also know that it is dangerous to suppress it, because the unconscious is life and this life turns against us if suppressed."
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1) The Individualization process is the goal of ultimate self-understanding by integrating one's conscious and unconscious states (a map to self understanding!)
2) To merge these two states, we first must understand and accept what is in each of them. Conscious contains ego and persona while unconscious contains shadow and the Anima/Animus, all of which make up your self.
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