Carl Jung's Theory: Carl Gustav Jung Is Essay

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Carl Jung's Theory:

Carl Gustav Jung is a well-known pioneer of analytical psychology who was born in 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland and the only child of a Swiss clergyman. His early family life played a critical role in shaping his theory as the huge focus placed on religion by his family contributed to the spiritual aspects of his theory. This is despite of his statement that he was bored by this heavy emphasis on religion during his youth. Through the various writings he found and personal experiences, Carl Jung was a young man intrigued by spirituality and the occult. Moreover, this psychologist was struck by several aspects of spiritualistic phenomena such as anecdotes, occurrences, symbols, and repetitious themes.

Jung's Personality Type Theory:

The personality type theory of Carl Jung basically entails several concepts like introversion, extroversion, and eight orientations. In his work, Jung developed eight distinct personality types which are the pairing of introversion and extroversion attitudes. After separating from Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung created the analytical psychology that differentiated personal conscious from collective unconscious. The collective unconscious can be described as the shared unconscious thoughts among human beings. Through his personality type theory, Jung made significant contribution to the field of psychology, especially because of the descriptions of introversion and extroversion attitudes.

One of the most notable observations by Carl Jung in the development of his personality type theory is that every individual appears to be energized or motivated by either the internal world or external world. In this case, the internal world is considered as introversion whereas the external world is described as extroversion. Therefore, he asserted that a person's psychological or personality type depends on his/her preference in either of these categories.

Moreover, Jung observed that what is seemingly random behavior tends to be the actual product of the differences in the way individuals prefer to use their mental abilities. People are normally engaged in either of the two mental functions i.e. perceiving or judging. While perceiving is taking information, judging is the process or act of organizing this information and arriving at certain conclusions. In relation to each of these mental functions, he observed that people prefer to conduct the function in either of two ways, which is known as preferences. While every individual takes information and make decisions or conclusions, some prefer to do more perceiving as others prefer to do more judging or decision-making ("C.G. Jung's Theory," n.d.). Through his publication on psychological types in 1971, Carl Jung introduced the concept that every individual has a personality type.

Analysis of Carl Jung's Personality Type Theory:

As previously mentioned, Jung's main contribution to psychology was his concept of introversion and extroversion attitudes as the key motivation to a person's actions and behaviors. Consequently, the introversion and extroversion attitudes act as the basis of Carl Jung's theory on personality types. According to this psychologist, an attitude is an individual's inclination to behave or act in a particular way. While introversion and extroversion are two opposing attitudes, they act as complementary forces in certain cases.

The main distinction between introversion and extroversion attitudes is that it differentiates a person's preference to direct attention toward the internal world of ideas or attention to the external world of people and things respectively. Therefore, preference of one of the two attitudes is an indicator of where people obtain their energy and motivation ("Carl Jung and Myers Briggs," 2011).

Introverts tend to find their motivation and energy in the internal world of concepts, abstractions, and ideas since they are mainly aware of their inner world. While these individuals can be sociable, they usually need tranquility in order to regain their energy. Furthermore, introverts concentrate and have a tendency of being reflective thinkers because they seek to understand the world. As a result, these people tend to think more than talk since the introverted attitude focuses more on subjective evaluation and usually gives increased consideration to dreams and fantasies.

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On the contrary, extroverts tend to find their motivation and energy in people and things as they are action-oriented and prefer interaction with others. In addition to talking more than they listen, extroverts have a tendency of thinking on their feet. The main characteristic of extroverts is that they have outward movement of psychic energy. The extroverted attitude places an increased importance on objectivity and obtains more influence from the external environment than by internal cognitive processes.

Functions of Personality:

Despite of whether an individual is an introvert or extrovert, there is need to deal with both the inner and outer worlds. While people have different preferred ways of dealing with the internal or external worlds, Carl Jung proposes the four basic personality functions or ways. When these four functions are combined with either of the two attitudes, they form the eight different personality types. These four functions are sensing, thinking, intuiting, and feeling (Boeree, 2006).

Feeling is the means with which an individual understands the value of conscious activity whereas thinking enables a person to understand the meanings of things. The thinking process mainly depends on logic and keen mental activity. On the other hand, sensation is the way with which an individual knows something exists as intuition is knowing something without the conscious understanding of the origin of the knowledge.

Jung states that every human being as these functions though everyone has them in different proportions. Each person has a superior function, which is the most preferred and developed in the person, a secondary function that is used to support the superior function, a tertiary function, that is relatively less developed, and an inferior function that is poorly developed and unconsciously denied. The personality types originating from the combination of these functions with one of the two attitudes are introverted thinking, extroverted thinking, introverted feeling, extroverted feeling, introverted sensing, extroverted sensing, introverted intuitive, and extroverted intuitive.

Use of these Personality Types in Therapy:

Based on analysis of the theory, Carl Jung views humans in a positive manner and believe that the intrinsically inclined to make their specific mark in the world. Notably, the process of making a mark on the world is not achieved by simply receiving reputation and glory through material accomplishment or notoriety. Jung's theory of personality types is used by therapists, especially in determining therapeutic goals or objectives. The use of these theories in therapy is usually referred to as analytical psychotherapy that has developed as an alternative to psychoanalytic therapy.

As disenchantment with Freud's theory, Jung's personality type theory and therapy is critical in developing therapeutic goals. Through this theory, a therapist-client collaborative examination of the symbolic messages that the unconscious reveals to the conscious is developed. This is mainly because Carl Jung has developed an approach that builds a dialectical relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness through a symbolic approach means (James & Gilliland, n.d.).

In most cases, counseling and analytical psychotherapy is a systematic and multifaceted process that is geared towards the assimilation of the conscious and unconscious. Consequently, the core of the therapy process is dream work, which is one of the most powerful and commonly used strategies for making the unconscious revealed to the conscious. Therefore, working through change and counter-transference relationships is an important aspect of therapist-client work in order to address issues that emerge in the course of therapy.

Jung's personality type theory is used to determine therapeutic goals by therapists through focusing on individual empowerment to move toward personal fulfillment. Therapists analyze client issues that are conveyed through both the conscious and unconscious messages. In addition, therapist develops an understanding of the client through an analysis of his/her personality based on Carl Jung's theory. As a result, the therapist will understand why the client behaves or acts in a specific way as well as their response and action in the specific….....

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