arm and said he wanted to show me something. He said I must look at the sun
with eyes half shut, and then I could see the sun ’s phallus. If I moved my head
from side to side the sun-phallus would move too, and that was the origin of thewind. (1936/1959, p. 51)
A few years later, while reading Greek mythology, Jung came across a de-
scription of a tubelike element hanging from the sun. According to the myth,
the tube was responsible for the wind. How could such an image appear in
both the hallucinations of the patient and the stories of the ancient Greeks?
Carl Gustav Jung
1875 –1961
Whereas biographers debate
the extent to which Freud ’s
personality theory reflectedhis own unconscious, CarlJung candidly described how
his ideas about personalitycame from introspection andhis own experiences. Jung
was born in 1875 in Kesswil, a small town inSwitzerland. He was a highly introspective child whokept to himself, largely because he felt no one wouldunderstand the inner experiences and thoughts withwhich he was preoccupied. Jung spent many childhoodhours pondering the meaning of the dreams and
supernatural visions he experienced. When he was 10,he carved a 2-inch human figure out of wood. He keptthe figure hidden, spoke to it when alone, andsometimes wrote to it in secret codes. During histeenage years, he was preoccupied with the feeling thathe was someone else. He began a lifelong search toidentify what he called his “Number Two” personality.
Jung’s desire to understand himself led him to the
young field of psychiatry. He earned his medical degreefrom the University of Basel in 1900, and then went toZurich to study with Eugen Bleuler, a leading authorityon schizophrenia. Later he worked in Paris with PierreJanet, who was conducting pioneering work onconsciousness and hypnosis. Naturally, Jung ’s curiosity
about the human mind soon brought him into contact
with Freud ’s work. After reading The Interpretation of
Dreams , Jung began a correspondence with Freud.
When they finally met in 1907, the two men are said to
have engaged in a conversation that lasted 13 hours.Jung soon became a close colleague of Freud ’s, even
accompanying him on his 1909 trip to lecture at ClarkUniversity. It was during this trip that Jung came toappreciate how intolerant Freud was of their
disagreements about the nature of personality. Jungformally parted with the Vienna group in 1914.
Jung spent the next 7 years in virtual isolation,
exploring the depths of his own unconscious. He
immersed himself in his fantasies, dreams, and visionsin an effort to discover the true nature of personality.Scholars disagree on whether this was a period ofvoluntary introspection or a lengthy psychotic episode.Jung’s autobiography, published just before his death,
provides evidence for both interpretations. “An
incessant stream of fantasies had been released, and Idid my best not to lose my head but to find some wayto understand these strange things, ”he wrote. “From
the beginning …I had an unswerving conviction that I
was obeying a higher will ”(1961, pp. 176– 177).
Jung reports visits by various figures and images
during these years. He came to see these figures as the
archetypal characters that make up the collective
unconscious. Jung described in detail conversationswith a figure he called Philemon. “I held conversations
with him, and he said things which I had notconsciously thought,” Jung wrote. “For I observed
clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. …I went
walking up and down the garden with him, and to mehe was what the Indians call a guru ”(1961, p. 183).
Jung emerged from these years of introspection
with a new theory of personality. He devoted the rest of
his career to private practice, travel, reading, and
studying. His observations during these experiences,combined with his continued introspection, resulted innumerous volumes and lectures. Many of Jung ’s
writings have been controversial, including those thatsome say hint at anti-Semitism (Noll, 1997).Nonetheless, his ideas about human personalitycontinue to mystify and excite readers from around theworld.Bettmann/CORBIS104 CHAPTER 5 The Psychoanalyt ic Approach