Describe and Evaluate Carl Jung’s Theory Concerning Personality Types and Show How It Might Usefully Help a Therapist to Determine the Clients Therapeutic Goals?
Describe and evaluate Carl Jung’s theory concerning personality types and show how it might usefully help a therapist to determine the clients therapeutic goals?
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Word count 2247
Personality can be described as the individual’s characteristic patterns of thought emotion and behaviour together with psychological mechanisms-hidden or not behind those patterns. The influence of both genetics and heredity factors alongside upbringing, culture and experience are recognised as influencing an individual’s personality. Within the counselling arena the client’s unique personality will influence their movement and path to finding solutions to issues and problems they bring. This essay will be evaluating Carl Jung’s type theory of personality which suggested that there were distinct personality types into which each individual could be placed. This essay will also discuss how useful the application of his personality type theory is within the counselling setting when determining the client’s goals.
Behind Carl Jung’s personality types theory are his concepts of the structure and dynamics of the human psyche. He proposed in a similar vein to his contemporary Sigmund Freud, that the human psyche comprised of different interrelating systems. The first system is that of the ‘ego’ which principally the conscious mind is. Close by to the ego is the ‘personal unconscious’, which includes anything which is not presently conscious, but can be. The personal unconscious holds all the individuals unique experiences and memories which can be brought into the conscious when needed. Lying behind the ‘personal unconscious’ is the ‘collective unconcious’ which contains ‘archetypes’ which are forms or symbols that are manifested by everyone across all sociieties and cultures. The collective unconcious according to Jung is something that all humans were born with and yet are never conscious of.
Jung was not the first theorists to propose that individuals personality can be
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Word count 2247
Personality can be described as the individual’s characteristic patterns of thought emotion and behaviour together with psychological mechanisms-hidden or not behind those patterns. The influence of both genetics and heredity factors alongside upbringing, culture and experience are recognised as influencing an individual’s personality. Within the counselling arena the client’s unique personality will influence their movement and path to finding solutions to issues and problems they bring. This essay will be evaluating Carl Jung’s type theory of personality which suggested that there were distinct personality types into which each individual could be placed. This essay will also discuss how useful the application of his personality type theory is within the counselling setting when determining the client’s goals.
Behind Carl Jung’s personality types theory are his concepts of the structure and dynamics of the human psyche. He proposed in a similar vein to his contemporary Sigmund Freud, that the human psyche comprised of different interrelating systems. The first system is that of the ‘ego’ which principally the conscious mind is. Close by to the ego is the ‘personal unconscious’, which includes anything which is not presently conscious, but can be. The personal unconscious holds all the individuals unique experiences and memories which can be brought into the conscious when needed. Lying behind the ‘personal unconscious’ is the ‘collective unconcious’ which contains ‘archetypes’ which are forms or symbols that are manifested by everyone across all sociieties and cultures. The collective unconcious according to Jung is something that all humans were born with and yet are never conscious of.
Jung was not the first theorists to propose that individuals personality can be
References: Radford J, Govier E.( 1987) A Textbook of Psychology. Sheldon Press Engler B, ( 1985). Personality Theories, An introduction. Houghton Mifflin Company. Frankland A, Sanders P. (2009) Next Steps in Counselling. PCCS Book Sharp D. (1987 ) Personality Types: Jung’s Model of Typology. Routledge Jung CG. (1976 ) Psychological Types. Routledge.