Jung matters

One of the towering intellectuals of the 20^th century who unfolded the layers of human intellect was the Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

By diagnosing and curing mental disorders, psychiatry in a prominent way helps to maintain the mental health. For treating depressions, some suggest anti-depressant drugs whereas some psychiatrists soothe the patient with their compassionate and comforting company. In either case, the goal is to help the patient overcome his shortcoming – only the approaches are different. I would choose the second way of kindhearted friendship of the psychiatrist – though I’ve never been in such company till now.

Jung was a warmhearted psychiatrist whose charismatic personality had a crucible of creativity – averting the conquest of mental breakdowns over his life. In fact, Jung’s lifelong interest was to help his patients free themselves from the tyranny of depressions.

Everyone wants to get over troubles in easy ways; it’s better to embrace the sweet quick-fix demon than the blissful struggle-some angel. One doesn’t want to struggle to an eventful conquest over problems but just wishes that some miraculous drug rids us of all our troubles. It’s like what the dead management guru Peter Ducker once said: “See an opportunity in every problem.” All of us these days use this so well in managing businesses to overawe competitors. But, can’t bring the same spirit to life because after all, life isn’t business and neither is business life.

Fine, first of all, let’s understand the way Jung identified a personality and its contents and constituency.

Everyone has a wholesome personality that Jung called the psyche. For Jung, psyche has a wholeness that disintegrates through life. One has to struggle to recover the wholeness and maximally, prevent any dissociation of the psyche. For example, schizophrenia (the disintegration of psyche or the “divided self”) is not uncommon among many of us.

There are three levels in psyche:

1. Consciousness
2. Personal unconscious and
3. Collective unconscious

More in the next post…