Personal and Collective Unconscious
The Personal and Collective Unconscious
To many, the unconscious is a section of our minds that is inconceivable and almost nonexistent. Like many things in life, what we cannot explain, we cannot accept. Sigmund Freud, mastermind of the field of psychology, began to theorize and explain the concept of the unconscious and its effects on our personal lives. Carl Gustav Jung was a young colleague of Sigmund Freud who made the “exploration of this “inner space” [the unconscious] his life’s work (Boeree 1). Jung was not only knowledgeable on the Freudian theory he was also knowledgeable in mythology, religion, philosophy and “traditions such as Gnosticism, Alchemy, Kabala, and similar traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism” (Boeree 1). Jung began to stray away from the Freudian theory and develop his own theory on the unconscious. The personal unconscious could be seen as the set of repressed feelings and thoughts experienced and developed during an individual person’s lifetime (Hayes 2) Freud put a lot of emphasis on the personal unconscious; Jung, however, believed there was more to our unconscious minds than just our own personal experience. He believed all humanity had a general unconscious that was the same. He named this the “collective unconscious”. The collective unconscious could be seen as the set of inherited and typical modes of expression, feeling, thought and memory that were seemingly innate to all human beings (Hayes 2). The unconscious contributes to the ways in which we function throughout our lives, and is made up of two components: the personal and collective unconscious.
To better understand the unconscious, both personal and collective, the conscious needs to be explained and understood. One would say that the conscious is simply everything we as an individual are aware of. The conscious can be defined by four sections. The first is thinking, which is thought, cognition, and logic. The second is feeling, and this type is what allows us to make
To many, the unconscious is a section of our minds that is inconceivable and almost nonexistent. Like many things in life, what we cannot explain, we cannot accept. Sigmund Freud, mastermind of the field of psychology, began to theorize and explain the concept of the unconscious and its effects on our personal lives. Carl Gustav Jung was a young colleague of Sigmund Freud who made the “exploration of this “inner space” [the unconscious] his life’s work (Boeree 1). Jung was not only knowledgeable on the Freudian theory he was also knowledgeable in mythology, religion, philosophy and “traditions such as Gnosticism, Alchemy, Kabala, and similar traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism” (Boeree 1). Jung began to stray away from the Freudian theory and develop his own theory on the unconscious. The personal unconscious could be seen as the set of repressed feelings and thoughts experienced and developed during an individual person’s lifetime (Hayes 2) Freud put a lot of emphasis on the personal unconscious; Jung, however, believed there was more to our unconscious minds than just our own personal experience. He believed all humanity had a general unconscious that was the same. He named this the “collective unconscious”. The collective unconscious could be seen as the set of inherited and typical modes of expression, feeling, thought and memory that were seemingly innate to all human beings (Hayes 2). The unconscious contributes to the ways in which we function throughout our lives, and is made up of two components: the personal and collective unconscious.
To better understand the unconscious, both personal and collective, the conscious needs to be explained and understood. One would say that the conscious is simply everything we as an individual are aware of. The conscious can be defined by four sections. The first is thinking, which is thought, cognition, and logic. The second is feeling, and this type is what allows us to make