Reaction Paper Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung, (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961), was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, and the founder of analytical psychology. His work and influence extends way beyond understanding personality, and he is considered to be one of the greatest thinkers to have theorised about life and how people relate to it. However, for the purpose of this assignment I will concentrate on Jung’s theory of Psychological Types.
In this essay I aim to demonstrate an understanding of Jung’s personality types by describing and evaluating his theory and to show how they might useful in helping a therapist to determine therapeutic goals.
Jung (1990, p.531) states that’ from earliest times, attempts have been made to classify individuals according to types, and so bring order to the chaos. The oldest attempts known to us were made by oriental astrologers who devised the so-called trigons of the four elements - air, water, earth, and fire. The air trigon in the horoscope consists of the three aerial signs of the zodiac, Aquarius, Gemini, Libra; the fire trigon is made up of Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. According to this age old view, whoever is born in these trigons shares in their aerial or fiery nature and will have a corresponding temperament and fate.‘ In the same paragraph, Jung states that ‘the astrological type theory, to the astonishment of the enlightened, still remains intact today,’ which is true.
Closely connected with the astrological type theory is the division into the four temperaments which corresponds to the four humors (Jung, 1990, p.531). A Greek physician, Claudius Galen (AD130 - 200), distinguished four basic temperaments: the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, and the melancholic. Galen’s theory goes back to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates’ (460 - 370BC), who described physical illness as being caused by the balance of bodily fluids, or humors as he labelled them’ (Maltby, et al, 2007, p.159). These bodily fluids are blood, black bile, yellow
In this essay I aim to demonstrate an understanding of Jung’s personality types by describing and evaluating his theory and to show how they might useful in helping a therapist to determine therapeutic goals.
Jung (1990, p.531) states that’ from earliest times, attempts have been made to classify individuals according to types, and so bring order to the chaos. The oldest attempts known to us were made by oriental astrologers who devised the so-called trigons of the four elements - air, water, earth, and fire. The air trigon in the horoscope consists of the three aerial signs of the zodiac, Aquarius, Gemini, Libra; the fire trigon is made up of Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. According to this age old view, whoever is born in these trigons shares in their aerial or fiery nature and will have a corresponding temperament and fate.‘ In the same paragraph, Jung states that ‘the astrological type theory, to the astonishment of the enlightened, still remains intact today,’ which is true.
Closely connected with the astrological type theory is the division into the four temperaments which corresponds to the four humors (Jung, 1990, p.531). A Greek physician, Claudius Galen (AD130 - 200), distinguished four basic temperaments: the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, and the melancholic. Galen’s theory goes back to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates’ (460 - 370BC), who described physical illness as being caused by the balance of bodily fluids, or humors as he labelled them’ (Maltby, et al, 2007, p.159). These bodily fluids are blood, black bile, yellow