The empirical basis of psychoanalytic philosophy is psychoanalysis. It originated in the framework of psychiatry as a kind of approach to the treatment of neuroses by the method of catharsis or self-purification. Gradually, it grew from a medical technique to the level of a philosophical trend. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist, is one of the researchers who had a significant impact on the advancement of contemporary psychology. The reconciliation with Freud had a significant impact on Jung’s scientific beliefs. However, it soon became clear that while having similar viewpoints and goals, they also have a lot of disagreements that they have not been able to work out. These differences mostly stemmed from using a different method to analyze the unconscious.
The highest and lowest points of a personality can both be unconscious. I regret to say that I disagree with Freud’s pansexualism, and like Jung, I thought of desire as a mental force that might manifest itself in numerous ways. Furthermore, I identify more with Jung’s interpretation of dreams and connections than I do with Freud’s. Symbols cannot take the place of other suppressed items and urges. Only a sign employed intentionally by a person may replace anything else, and the sign itself is a free-standing, dynamic, living item (Morawska 47). The symbol does not provide anything back, but instead expresses the psychological condition that the user is in. Because it is required to pursue a person’s symbolism far within his unconscious, I do not embrace Freud’s symbolic interpretation of dreams or connections.
In my opinion, Jung’s analytical theory provides the most accurate description of the human condition. The human condition, according to Jung’s theory, consists of three separate but interacting structures: the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The ego provides a person with a sense of integrity, constancy, and serves as the basis of his self-consciousness. The personal unconscious in Jung’s concept is broader than the unconscious in Freud’s, since it additionally includes human complexes (Falzeder & Rasche 125). Formed around the most common themes, these complexes strongly influence a person’s attitude and behavior.
Jung referred to these fundamental psychological representations as archetypes when he described the collective unconscious. Numerous archetypes, including mother, child, hero, sage, rogue, God, death, etc., were named and defined by him (Morawska 44). Freud did use the concept of complex in his theories, for example, the Oedipus complex or the castration complex. However, for Jung, the concept of complex meant emotionally charged images or concepts that behave like their own split personality. Each complex had an archetype at its center, and this was related to the concept of trauma. Jung considered parapsychology and psychic phenomena very important. Freud was against studying such ideas and linking them with psychoanalysis, and he believed that this would distort existing theories.
Due to the universal nature of archetypal concepts and ideas, they are frequently represented by the same symbols in several civilizations. Jung’s introduction of the idea of collective unconscious archetypes within the context of analytical theory therefore establishes a link between analytical psychology and the history of human evolution in all of its cultural expressions (Falzeder & Rasche 120). Jung said that the personality grows toward self-realization by integrating and harmonizing the aspects that make up it. As a result, the analytical theory he put out offers the most precise analysis of the human situation.
Although I think my preferred there was a reflection of the early twentieth century, I do not think it would prove to move along the modernist movement. One of the distinctive features of intellectual culture at the beginning of the XX century is the development and increasing influence of analytical philosophy. At its origins stood the English philosophers George Edward Moore and Bertrand Russell, as well as the German logician and mathematician Gottlob Frege (Falzeder & Rasche 121). Analytical philosophy has inherited the tradition of studying the foundations of knowledge – both in its sensory, empirical, and rational, theoretical form. Therefore, it is quite characteristic that Jung’s theory of the human condition was also analytic. However, in the period of modernism, special attention is beginning to be paid to literature and psychologism in it, which gives rise to a psychoanalytic concept (Morawska 49). Jung did not connect the structure of unconscious processes with the linguistic analysis of language and its mechanisms. In this regard, during the development of the modernist movement, his analytical theory lost relevance.
Freud, in accordance with the traditions of European science, was a determinist. In this respect, the difference between his positions and Jung’s was particularly significant. Jung, following the Aristotelian tradition, recognized not only causal, but also teleological explanation. Freud’s determinism in the field of psychology seemed unacceptable to many because it deprived a person of free will. Meanwhile, in his analytical theory, Jung not only rejected psychological determinism, but also convincingly proved why an individual has a rich choice of behavioral possibilities, so his position is closer to mine.
Works Cited
Falzeder, Ernst, and David Rasche. “Freud and Jung on Freud and Jung.” Journal of Analytical Psychology, vol. 65, no. 11, 2020, pp. 116–135.
Morawska, Kamila. “Gaston Bachelard’s Problems with Psychoanalysis. Between Freud and Jung.” Bachelard Studies Journal, vol. 2, no. 7, 2021, pp. 43–54.