QUESTIONS:

In 5+ sentences, share how the posting below reinforces your understanding of a course concept introduced in Week 1 (History of Psychology). Provide constructive, thoughtful feedback designed to build an engaging dialog. To achieve this, you can expand upon the discussion through the sharing of addition of websites, articles, interactive tutorials, or videos.

CONTEXT:

In reading this week's literature, I have decided to do this discussion post on Carl Jung. Carl Jung has contributed quite a bit to the field of psychology. Notably, the MBTI personality test is rooted in his personality theory work.

Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875. Importantly, Jung was and still is deemed a mystic. As a child, he experienced many "visions." Coincidentally in adulthood, Jung described having an apocalyptic vision. Then, World War I began a year later (Bem, 2016). The apocalyptic vision left Jung mentally shaken to the point of hallucinating two figures, Elijah and Salome. This experience would go on to shape Jung's ideas about the mind.

Interestingly, Jung was a student of Sigmund Freud. The two had a shared interest in the unconscious, but later the two had a falling out after Jung openly criticized some of Freud's claims about the Oedipus complex and sexuality in infancy (McLeod, 2018). However, regarding the topic of unconsciousness, Jung proposed the concept of the collective unconscious mind. Jung proposed that collective unconsciousness is the interconnectedness shared by all humans. Seeking to further understand this concept, Jung moved to the US to learn from Native American cultures (Bem, 2016). From his experiences with the Native American communities, Jung declared that religion came into existence due to the unconscious mind and the collective experiences of people. Ever the mystic, Jung also cited the existence of similar folklore, dreams, and legends as proof of the collective unconscious (Bem, 2016). Indeed, these assertions of collective unconsciousness are still commonly found within New Age spirituality. While his claims about collective unconsciousness maintain popularity within New Age groups, his claims about it remain controversial within Psychology and scientific groups due to the pseudo-philosophic roots (Mcleod, 2018).

With that, Jung has made commendable contributions to the field through his work in personality theory. After 20 years of observation, Jung identified two types of attitudes within humanity, introversion and extroversion (Bem, 2016). In addition to his two theories of attitude, Jung also theorized about the four psychological functions of feeling, intuiting, thinking, and sensing. The combination of attitude and psychological function later was adopted into the creation of the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Sources:

Bem P. Allen. (2016).Personality Theories: Development, Growth, and Diversity: Vol. Fifth edition. Psychology Press.

Delahanty, E. J., Jr. (2021). History of psychology.Salem Press Encyclopedia of Health.

McLeod, S. A. (2018, May 21).Carl jung. Simply Psychology. www.simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html