Carl Jung's Theories: Personality, Psyche &

Dreams
In this lesson, we will be discussing Carl Jung's theories. Specifically, we will look at his theories
on personality, dream analysis and the human psyche. At the end, you can test your knowledge
with a short quiz.

Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist whose research was deep-rooted in psychoanalysis.
He was greatly influenced by Sigmund Freud and even conducted research alongside him.
Eventually, though, Jung disagreed with many of Freud's theories. Jung is best known for his
research in personality, dream analysis and the human psyche.
His theories are so revered that they were made into their own school of psychotherapy: Jungian
psychology, which is also called analytical psychology. Let's look deeper into the main theories
of Jungian psychology.

Personality Theory
In his theory of personality, Carl Jung distinguishes two different attitude types: Introverts, which
are those people who receive stimulation from within, and extroverts, which are those who
receive their stimulation from the environment.
Introverts are generally more withdrawn, while extroverts are generally more sociable. For
example, Donna is an extrovert. She loves to go out on adventures with lots of people and see
exciting new things. Her friend David, though, is the opposite. Given the choice, he'd rather read
a book on his couch than go skydiving with Donna. David is an introvert.
Jung also separates introverts and extroverts into four subtypes according to the functions that
control the way they perceive the world. Both introverts and extroverts can be any of these
subtypes, so there are eight possible personality types. These four functions are:
1. Thinking
Applying reasoning to the situations and environments you encounter. For example, David likes
to think things through and consider all the pros and cons before he makes a decision about
anything.
2. Feeling

Applying subjective, personal assessment to the situations and environments you encounter.
Unlike David, Donna relies on her feelings to tell her how to make a decision. If something feels
good, she goes for it; if it doesn't, she avoids it.
3. Sensation
Applying aesthetic value to the situations and environments you encounter. For example, when
deciding how to arrange his living room, David tries to make things very symmetrical. If there's
a chair on one side of the room, he has to put the same chair on the other side of the room to
balance it. This symmetry makes the room look nice.
4. Intuition
Using your unconscious or the mystical to understand your experiences. For example, Donna
thinks David is arranging his furniture all wrong. She thinks he should use feng shui, an ancient
Chinese philosophy, to choose where to put his furniture.

Human Psyche
The human psyche is the whole mind, including the conscious and the unconscious. Jung's
theory states that each person's psyche is comprised of three components:
1. Ego
The hub of consciousness that forms all unrepressed perceptions, thoughts, feelings and
memories. When Donna walks into a room, her ego perceives the color of the walls, the people
in the room and what they're doing and the song playing in the background. But, the ego can
only hold a select amount of information and the remaining data sinks into the unconscious.
2. Personal unconscious
The experiences and memories unique to the individual that are not currently in, but are readily
available to, the conscious mind. For example, maybe Donna feels uncomfortable in the room
where she just walked. She doesn't like it, but she's not sure why. It just gives her a bad feeling.
Perhaps it's because the walls are the same color as the hospital room where her grandmother
died. She doesn't consciously associate the room with her grandmother dying, but she has bad
feelings because her personal unconscious is at work.
3. Collective unconscious
The universal experiences and memories shared by all humans - the blueprints for life that allow
us to adapt and survive. The collective unconscious is further comprised of archetypes, or modes
of thought that belong to all of humanity. The hero and villain, son and father, strong and weak these are all archetypes. Donna also feels uneasy in the room because the decorations are almost
all black. She associates black with evil and white with good, like many people do. This is an
example of archetypes.

Dream Analysis
It was during his research into dream analysis that Jung parted ways with Freud; he disagreed
with Freud's heavy emphasis on sexual motivation in dreams. Additionally, Freud believed that
the unconscious mind used dreams to hide repressed desires from the conscious, whereas Jung
believed that the unconscious mind used dreams to reveal suppressed desires to the conscious.
According to Jung's theory, as a window to the unconscious, dreams serve to help you solve
problems in your waking life and become a more whole person. Dreams are formed by the two
parts of the unconscious - the personal and the collective. They can be analyzed by interpreting
the archetypes presented by the collective unconscious; however, the symbolism contained in
dreams is specific to the individual's life. Therefore, meaning cannot be broadly ascribed to a
symbol. For example, a dream about falling might mean one person's career is on the wrong
track, while the same dream might signify repressed sexual desires for another person.

Lesson Summary
Jungian psychology, also called analytical psychology, is a branch of psychology founded by
Carl Jung. He studied personalities and clustered people into introverts and extroverts. Further,
he said that introverts and extroverts could view the world through thinking, feeling, sensation or
intuition. Jung believed that the human psyche had three parts: the ego, personal unconscious and
collective unconscious. Finally, his dream analysis was broader than Freud's, as Jung believed
that symbols could mean different things to different people.

Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

Understand Carl Jung's contributions to psychology

Differentiate between introverts and extroverts

Name and summarize the four personality subtypes and the three components of the
human psyche

Explain Jung's dream analysis and how it differed from Freud's