Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Jung: Analytical
Psychology
© The McGraw−Hill^105
Companies, 2009This chapter looks with some detail into the long and colorful life of Carl Jung
and uses fragments from his life history to illustrate his concepts and theories. Jung’s
notion of a collective unconscious makes his theory one of the most intriguing of all
conceptions of personality.
Biography of Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was born on July 26, 1875, in Kesswil, a town on Lake Constance
in Switzerland. His paternal grandfather, the elder Carl Gustav Jung, was a promi-
nent physician in Basel and one of the best-known men of that city. A local rumor
suggested that the elder Carl Jung was the illegitimate son of the great German poet
Goethe. Although the elder Jung never acknowledged the rumor, the younger Jung,
at least sometimes, believed himself to be the great-grandson of Goethe (Ellen-
berger, 1970).
Both of Jung’s parents were the youngest of 13 children, a situation that may
have contributed to some of the difficulties they had in their marriage. Jung’s father,
Johann Paul Jung, was a minister in the Swiss Reformed Church, and his mother,
Emilie Preiswerk Jung, was the daughter of a theologian. In fact, eight of Jung’s ma-
ternal uncles and two of his paternal uncles were pastors, so both religion and med-
icine were prevalent in his family. Jung’s mother’s family had a tradition of spiritu-
alism and mysticism, and his maternal grandfather, Samuel Preiswerk, was a believer
in the occult and often talked to the dead. He kept an empty chair for the ghost of his
first wife and had regular and intimate conversations with her. Quite understandably,
these practices greatly annoyed his second wife.
Jung’s parents had three children, a son born before Carl but who lived only 3
days and a daughter 9 years younger than Carl. Thus, Jung’s early life was that of an
only child.
Jung (1961) described his father as a sentimental idealist with strong doubts
about his religious faith. He saw his mother as having two separate dispositions. On
one hand, she was realistic, practical, and warmhearted, but on the other, she was un-
stable, mystical, clairvoyant, archaic, and ruthless. An emotional and sensitive child,
Jung identified more with this second side of his mother, which he called her No. 2
or night personality (Alexander, 1990). At age 3 years, Jung was separated from his
mother, who had to be hospitalized for several months, and this separation deeply
troubled young Carl. For a long time after, he felt distrustful whenever the word
“love” was mentioned. Years later he still associated “woman” with unreliability,
whereas the word “father” meant reliable—but powerless (Jung, 1961).
Before Jung’s fourth birthday, his family moved to a suburb of Basel. It is from
this period that his earliest dream stems. This dream, which was to have a profound
effect on his later life and on his concept of a collective unconscious, will be de-
scribed later.
During his school years, Jung gradually became aware of two separate aspects
of his self, and he called these his No. 1 and No. 2 personalities. At first he saw both
personalities as parts of his own personal world, but during adolescence he became
aware of the No. 2 personality as a reflection of something other than himself—an
old man long since dead. At that time Jung did not fully comprehend these separate
powers, but in later years he recognized that No. 2 personality had been in touch with
Chapter 4 Jung: Analytical Psychology 99