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3 - The creative psyche

Jung's major contributions

from Part 1 - Jung's ideas and their context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

By
Sherry Salman
Edited by
Polly Young-Eisendrath  and
Terence Dawson
Polly Young-Eisendrath
Affiliation:
University of Vermont
Terence Dawson
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
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Summary

For Jung, the psyche was a many-splendored thing: fluid, multi-dimensional, alive, and capable of creative development. Having been Assistant Director of a psychiatric hospital, Jung was no stranger to disease, psychosis, and inertia. But he possessed a love for the orderly chaos of the psyche and a trust in its integrity, which both informed his conception of it, and shaped his psychoanalytic vision.

This chapter explores Jung's major discoveries, the bedrock upon which his psychological vision rests, and the ideas which continue to inform contemporary thought and practice: his unique view of psychological process; the subjective, individual path to objective awareness; and the creative use of unconscious material. Although Jung is infamous for having drawn on esoteric sources such as Medieval alchemy, he was actually ahead of his time, prescient in terms of his post-modern view of the psyche.

Disturbed by the trend in which the scientific knowledge of matter was outstripping knowledge of the human psyche, Jung noted that just as chemistry and astronomy had split off from their origins in alchemy and astrology, modern science was distancing itself, but to a dangerous degree, from the study and understanding of the psychological universe. He foresaw the enormity of the discrepancy we face now: while in the process of cracking the genetic code and creating biological life, we remain virtually ignorant regarding the psyche. Jung was drawn to seemingly mystical systems like astrology and alchemy because they were oriented toward a synthetic understanding of matter and psyche.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Jung , pp. 52 - 70
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1997

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