Jung’s Collective Unconscious and Freudian Psychoanalysis
Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious (1875-1961)
I: The Unconscious Mind
The unconscious mind encompasses everything not currently in consciousness but accessible to it.
Personal Unconscious
This layer includes forgotten memories and repressed experiences that attract or repel us. Unlike Freud’s view, Jung did not include instincts here.
Collective Unconscious
This is an evolutionary product, a shared, innate knowledge everyone is born with, of which we are unaware. It indirectly influences our experiences and behaviors, especially emotional ones.
Archetypes and Primordial Images
These are the contents of the collective unconscious. They are innate, evolutionary products, lacking specific form, acting as the organizing principle for our perceptions and actions. They help us respond to stimuli in a determined way.
- Archetypal Mother: An innate predisposition to seek, recognize, and interact with a mother figure. It is abstract, designed to recognize the general relationship of maternity, and when encountering a real person, it tends to be personified (e.g., the Virgin Mary).
- Shadow: Represents sexuality and instincts; the dark side of the self. It is neither inherently good nor bad, but contains aspects we tend to discard as negative.
- Persona: The public image we present; our social mask. As one grows, becoming more aware, this part can become the most distant from the collective unconscious.
- Youth Leaders: Jung, Freud, and others theorized that we were bisexual in the fetal state, which influences our adult love life.
- Anima: The feminine appearance present in the collective unconscious of men.
- Animus: The masculine appearance present in the collective unconscious of women.
- Self: Encompasses all aspects of personality equally, neither exclusively masculine nor feminine. Its goal is individuation: achieving integrity through the synthesis of the unconscious and conscious. It develops our innate potential, but obstacles must be overcome, requiring the acceptance and integration of all talents and defects.
Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
The Topographical Model of the Mind
- Conscious: Everything we are aware of at a particular moment, connecting us to current experience.
- Preconscious: All memories and information that are not currently conscious but can be retrieved when needed by the conscious mind.
- Unconscious: Contains instincts and darker desires; the source of motivations denied by the conscious mind, observable only in dreams.
Instincts
Life Instincts (Eros)
These help people survive and reproduce, motivating behavior. The Sexual Instinct is comprehensive, covering various bodily pleasures that merge at puberty for future reproduction.
Libido: The energy released by the life instinct to fuel thought and behavior (often sexual energy), directly related to our sexuality.
- If life instincts are unmet or conflicts arise around them, the built-up libido can be released unexpectedly, potentially leading to abnormal behavior.
Death Instincts (Thanatos)
The unconscious desire to die, provoking aggressive behavior (self-destruction channeled into a substitute). This desire is blocked by the life impulse and other personality forces.
Structural Model of the Human Mind
These structures constantly compete for the libido:
Id
Home to primitive instincts. It lacks logical organization and operates on the pleasure principle.
- Primary process thinking creates a virtual image in the mind of the desired object to satisfy an impulse, producing pleasure that temporarily satisfies the need.
Ego
Emerges as children grow and realize reality. Its function is to locate objects that satisfy the needs of the Id, operating on the reality principle.
- Reality principle refers to the logical control that operates based on reality, meeting needs by considering circumstances. Secondary process thinking, directed by the Ego, is critical, organized, rational, and realistic.
Superego
It incorporates values, standards, and guidelines, regulating and restricting the Ego.
- When the Ego meets the Superego’s mandates, we feel satisfaction; otherwise, we feel remorse and rejection.