The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche

Jung's Collected Works #8

by C.G. Jung, Gerhard Adler (Translator), R.F.C. Hull (Translator)

Bollingen Series XX
The Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche is one of the better volumes of the Princeton/Bollingen Collected Works.
1st comes "On Psychic Energy", the most difficult essay in the volume. Generally, it discusses the "canalization of libido". Jung redefines "libido" by moving away from its purely sexual connotation. For him, libido is simply a generic form of psychic energy which can be redirected into both sexual & non-sexual activities, such as religious rituals, dances, incantations & chants. Only when the intrinsic need for ritual is supressed does the libido tend to direct its energies into sexual perversion. Altho the concept is interesting, the writing style of this essay is rather opaque.
Next comes an essay called "The Transcendent Function", which basically deals with the healing breakthru which is the goal of the patient in psychotherapy.
Next is an essay dealing with "Complex Theory". This essay deals with word-association tests in which the experimenter observes the subjects reactions & hesitations when given a word that evokes embarrassing or painful memories.
Next are three short but profound & informative essays.
Then comes the centerpiece, a potent & spectacular classic of 20th century psychology entitled "On the Nature of the Psyche". This, along with "Answer to Job", is one of Jung's best essays. It deals with a wide range of topics, including the limitations & paradoxes associated with epistemology, & the dualistic & paradoxical interrelationship between the subjective/inner psyche & the objective/outer world. This essay has much to say about the limitations of our subjectivity, & the degree to which we depend on other people & the outside world to attain consciousness. Jung does an excellent job in demarcating the thin line which divides the outer world & the sum of our subjective perceptions. This essay is a mind warping trip into a sea of paradoxical mysteries of the psyche.
After a short essay dealing with spirits, come a series of three: "Spirit & Life", "Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology" & "Analytical Psychology & Weltanschauung". These deal with the delicate issue of fate & determinism vs free will, & the idea of achieving an objective attitude, a Weltanschauung. Jung warns against attempting to unite everyone under one objective attitude or "ism". This can only lead to repression, nationalistic, racist, patriotic bias & war. According to him, when one nation unites under an "ism" or worldview which is erronously believed to be objective & appropriate for everyone, we'll end up with a repression of indivdual, diverse opinions at best, & at worst, will have a worldwide tragedy resulting from the quest to force this attitude on other people. According to Jung, democracy also counts as one of those "ism's" that we shouldn't try to force on others.
Next we have three more short essays which are very good, especially "The Soul & Death".
Finally, we have "Syncronicity", a fascinating essay dealing with paranormal psychic phenomena such as ESP.
Overall, The Structure & Dynamics of the Psyche is a true magnum opus of psychology, recommended to anyone willing to take on a challenge for the pursuit of self-knowledge.--Ross James Browne (edited)

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Mysticism, Science

608 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Carl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.

The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.

Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.

Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.

Reviews

[Теодор Панов · Rating 5 out of 5]

Много впечатляваща личност е бил Карл Юнг. Изследванията му в областта на психологията са всеобхватни, а прозренията, до които достига чрез тях, и теориите, които предлага, са наистина изумителни. Сравненията с Фройд са неизбежни, но в много от областите, които и двамата са изследвали и търсили отговори, намирам теориите на Юнг с една идея по-точни и задълбочени.

[Marko Bojkovský · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evo ne 'nam bogu mi, čitanje Junga je za mene nešto posebno. Na stranu naučnost njegove misli, na stranu i njegov sumnjivi karakter (izvlačenje velikih svota novca od bogatih gospodžica, falsifikovanje svojih "dokaza"...), Jung je grandiozno oživljena figura velikog mudraca, velikog vrača, žreca, mistika kojeg zapad nije video vekovima pre njega i ko zna koliko će ponovo čekati na sledeće inkarnaciju. Njegova mistična intuicija nije vrhunska, nije bezgrešna, nije tako potpuna kao kod nekih drugih savremenih zapadnjaka (a možda se samo ne zadržava odveć na onom što smatra očiglednim za mistike ili preterano mističnim za naučnu zajednicu), ali njegova prijemčivost, njegova harizma u pisanoj reči, njegovo duboko razumevanje duše, kao i otvoreno priznanje nerazumevanja te duše je nešto što retko viđamo i kod religioznih, okultnih, mističnih likova davnina, a tek ne u celokupnoj modernoj, zapadnoj psihologiji.

Preporučio bih svima ovu knjigu, relativno je laka za čitanje i razumevanje, kao što je i zanimljiva. Tek delom je arhaična i ograničena naučnim saznanjima jungovog doba, pa će upravo ti delovi biti i dosadniji.
Mislim da posle nje većina jungovskih pojmova ostaje prilično dobro objašnjenja, s tim da jedino za njegovu individuacija i sopstvo, iako to prilično jasno navodi u knjizi, valja napomenuti još jednom da u pitanju nisu termini koji se bave ličnim identitetima, okrenutim "malom ja", već su u srži to drevne upanišadske ideje o "univerzalnom ja":
"Ako postoji ova nadindividualna duša, onda bi sve ono što bi se prevelo u njen slikovni govor bilo nepristupačno svemu onom što je lično, a kada bi to postalo svesno, onda sub specie aeternitatis to ne bi više bila moja žalost već ta žalost sveta, više ne lično izolovani bol, već bol bez gorčine koji spaja sve nas ljude. Da ovo može da izleči, za to ne moramo tražiti dokaze."

Nasuprot silini nju ejdž kikiriki misli koja je čak i dan-danas živa i popularna, a koja je ništa do ekonomska religija u kojoj je jedino u procesu ekonomije konkretno božanstvo zamenjeno "univezrumom" i u kojoj je molitva ili žrtva zamenjena pozitivnim mislima, Jungova misao (koju su pogrešno prenosila dva velika populizatora - Džozef Kembel, koji je upravo smiksao Junga i nju ejdž i aktualni Džordan Piterson koji je, pak, previše bukvalno shvatio priču o "senki", kao i neke druge jungovske pojmove) nema mnogo veselosti u sebi, mrak i pakao koji ključa ispod tankog sloja leda na kojem igramo svi mi smrtni i "normalni" ljudi njegove su teme, no sa druge strane ni pesimizam i nihilizam takođe nisu njegovi.
I ako čovek koji pročita ovu kolekciju njegovih misli, ništa drugo i ne usvoji, i ne promisli, sve odbaci, makar bi razmišljanje o njegovoj "projekciji" i o "-izmima" bilo dovoljno da možda tog čoveka učini daleko kvalitetnijom i prijatnijom osobu.

"Izvanredno dobro shvatam otpor svih čvrstih ubeđenja naspram psihološkog otkrovenja ove
vrste. Sa više slutnje nego stvarnog znanja osećaju ljudi strah od preteće sile, koia leži sputana negde duboko u svakom čoveku i nekako čeka na čarobnu reč, koja kida okove. Ta čarobna reč uvek se završav$ sa -izam i ima najuspešnije dejstvo upravo kod onih ljudi koji iimaju najmanji uvid u intimna, psihološka zbivanja čoveka i koji su od svoje instinktivne osnove najdalje zalutali u stvarno haotički svet kolektivne svesti."

[Genndy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I approached this book with prejudice, but it managed to debunk my expectations. I heard that Jung was actually a metaphisicyst disguised as a scientist because his rediculous theory about inheritable concepts, but his hypotesis, when you let the man to speak for himself, seems rather reasonable. He even doesn't go further than just stating that this inheritable concepts, which are expressed in universal imagery and which he calls archetypes, are not all that different from instincts, which are also mind settings which we inherit from our ancestors. He doesn't go metaphysical at all, at least when concerning archetypes. There are chapters in this book which ARE highly speculative, and maybe even unscientific, where he talks about paranormal activities as manifestations of the unconscious mind, but at the same time he gives the possibility for them to be something more than that. Fortunately, those passages are rare and not that important in this book and in his work in general, for he is most famous and most important for his theory about archetypes, which he managed to present in a reasonable and possibly plausible ways.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume, a selection of quite a few essays, comes closer to the core of what is characteristic of Jung's psychological theory than most of the others in The Collected Works.

[Caleb Beers · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you take an entry-level course in psychology at most universities, you'll get a whole spiel about Freud, some passing mentions of Wundt and William James, and maybe a word about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. For Jung, they'll say a little about the collective unconscious and archetypes, but mostly gloss over him. You'll hear far more about Freud than Jung. As far as the history of psychology is concerned, Freud is Coke, Jung is Pepsi. Freud is considered (incorrectly in my opinion) the father of the whole discipline, and Jung is relegated to a secondary role.

As with most cases like this, the less mainstream option turns out to be the superior one. This text – my first experience with Jung – impacted me profoundly on both an intellectual and a personal level.

On an intellectual level, I'm astonished by Jung's mysticism. I was told that Jung was one of the founding figures of psychology, which is supposed to be a science. And yet, Jung does not sound like a scientist, or even a philosopher. He sounds more like a wizard pretending to be a scientist. When he talks about the depths of the human mind, he doesn't sound like a scientist explaining a theory of mental function. He sounds like a sage living deep in the forest, and oracle speaking of the hidden depths of the human soul.

Jung believes that the conscious mind is only part of the human psyche. Like Freud, he believes also in the unconscious. But for Freud, the unconscious was born of repression; growing up, we realize that some of our sexual and aggressive tendencies are not socially acceptable, so we repress them. Freud thinks that the only reason we have a subconscious is because we have to hide things in our mental basement. The basement was only created so we have a place to hide our bad sexual and aggressive urges. For Freud, consciousness comes first, and the unconscious is constructed as a place to hide things. The house is consciousness, but we dig out a basement to hide things in, and this basement is the subconscious.

For Jung, it's the other way around. The unconscious is like the soil that consciousness emerges from. Consciousness is like a tree, and the unconscious is like the soil the tree grows from. Jung thinks that animals and small children are already "unconscious", and that consciousness is an evolutionary stage that comes next. The deepest parts of us, our deepest hopes and fears, are like the roots of the tree of consciousness, reaching deep down into the mysterious depths. The unconscious isn't just some cellar where we can hide our baggage, a closet to keep our skeletons in; it is, rather, the source of meaning, of our deepest hopes and fears.

In summary: Freud thinks that the subconscious is a disgusting place, a mental toilet. For Jung, it's more like a treasure chest, or a cavern full of dragons and monsters and hidden jewels. Terrifying, yes, but also wonderful and mysterious. Religion, mythology, art, all of the things that are precious to us – all of these have their origin in the unconscious.

In a way, it's hard for me to summarize what I find so compelling about this text because the whole thing is compelling. I spent the whole time I was reading this nodding my head and going "Yep, yep, exactly, yes, precisely. Of course. Aha! I see. Yes, yes, yes..." I'll do my best, though.

First of all, a quick terminological note: Jung uses the word "psychic" to mean what most people mean by "psychological". He doesn't mean "psychic" in the sense of telepathy, although this is a little confusing because Jung does believe in things like telepathy and clairvoyance.

Jung begins by defining psychic energy. Again, he doesn't mean some magical wave that impacts things at a distance. Rather, Jung defines psychic energy as the product of tension. Jung believes that human beings can be divided against themselves; our minds are complex enough that we can be at odds with ourselves, fight ourselves, have internal conflicts, have drives and instincts that conflict with one another, want two things at the same time. When an inner conflict occurs, this is the source of psychic energy. The tensions within us are, in fact, the source of our energy. Our drives in life and our will to carry out plans and create things are rooted in the contradictions within us. I'm reminded of Nietzsche's aphorism: "One must still have chaos within oneself to give birth to a dancing star." The chaos that comes from our internal conflicts is the source of our creativity and our drive.

Moreover, we are not one thing. Consciousness, to Jung, is not unitary. Each complex and unconscious issue that we have is like a character that lives inside of us, a kind of subroutine in the program that is our minds. Each "sub-personality" makes its contribution and is part of the tapestry that defines the whole person. As Whitman says, "I am large; I contain multitudes." The complexes you have, your issues with your parents and events in your past and so on, are not merely objects within you. Each one is like a distinct personality unto itself.

That's the intellectual side of it. But on a personal level, this text impacted me deeply because it speaks to where I am at this point in my life. Jung makes the "Many – far too many – aspects of life which should also have been experienced lie in the lumber-room among dusty memories; but sometimes, too, they are glowing coals under grey ashes." In his essay on the stages of life, he says, "...if these persons had filled up the beaker of life earlier and emptied it... they would have kept nothing back, everything that wanted to catch fire would have been consumed, and the quiet of old age would be very welcome to them... For them, a prospect and a goal in the future is absolutely necessary." One of my personal issues is that I feel I did not live enough when I was young (I'm 33), and also feel that I didn't maximize my potential. This has been a burden to me over the past few years, and I'm currently at a crossroads in my life. If I don't want to be one of Jung's unexploded fireworks, I need to make some hard decisions, right now. Jung's perspective has been immensely helpful to me at this point in my life and I cannot recommend this text enough to people in a similar spot.

The final essay, on synchronicity, brings it all together. Synchronicity is a complex concept and I can't do it full justice in such a short review, but I'll do my best. The idea behind synchronicity is basically this: if you ask the question, "Is anything in the universe really 'coincidental'?" the answer is an emphatic "no". It's not so much that everything is ordained beforehand or that everything happens for a reason. It's more that everything is connected. There is no such thing as a meaningless coincidence. Jung uses the term "meaningful coincidence" to refer to synchronous phenomena.

For example, let's use a hypothetical situation. Let's suppose, hypothetically, that you're watching a comedian on TV, and you see a deck of playing cards on the coffee table in front of you. You pull the top card off the deck, and just as the comedian comes on TV, you realize that that card is the joker. This is synchronicity. Everything is connected to everything else.

Synchronicity is acausal, meaning it doesn't involve causality. This is very abstract, so pay close attention. Jung does not think that some mysterious power puts the joker on top of the deck of cards. He doesn't think that the presence of the comedian on television somehow influences the cards. Rather, he thinks that the whole universe is just "set up that way". It's not that some mysterious power is pulling the strings. It's just that the entire universe is connected like a big spiderweb, and everything has a deep connection to everything else. You pull on one corner of the web, and the entire thing moves. It's not that some mysterious force reaches out and arranges everything. It was all just deeply connected from the very beginning. It has to be this way. This isn't some paranormal woo. It's very similar to classical conceptions of destiny, or fate.

The essay on synchronicity pulls it all together because it gives the reader a fresh perspective on life. It is an invitation to stop ruminating and fretting, and instead allow oneself to "fall forward" in life, allowing for adventure and even fear but taking solace in the deeply-felt certainty that all things are connected.

[Y · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book in the Collected Works so far. Discusses the different components of Jung’s model of the psyche with lots of interesting tangents. This is where Jung’s more unique theories are discussed in full, including libido, the transcendent function, synchronicity, complexes and telepathy.

His writing on synchronicity felt like an odd combination of phenomena he was trying to shove into one category. He includes ESP, astrology, deja vu, prophetic dreams, and seemingly meaningless coincidences all as “synchronicity”. He says this is external to the psyche and is an “acausal connecting principle” but doesn’t really understand what it is, other than that there appears to be a link between synchronicity and the strength of one’s emotional state. My confusion is why would all of these things be under the same category. Also, why would some of this phenomena not be just a less understood function or capability of the psyche? Excerpt below:

“The very diverse and confusing aspects of these phenomena are, so far as I can see at present, completely explicable on the assumption of a psychically relative space-time continuum. As soon as a psychic content crosses the threshold of consciousness, the synchronistic marginal phenomena disappear, time and space resume their accustomed sway, and consciousness is once more isolated in its subjectivity. We have here one of those instances which can best be understood in terms of the physicist’s idea of “complementarity.” When an unconscious content passes over into consciousness its synchronistic manifestation ceases; conversely, synchronistic phenomena can be evoked by putting the subject into an unconscious state (trance). The same relationship of complementarity can be observed just as easily in all those extremely common medical cases in which certain clinical symptoms disappear when the corresponding unconscious contents are made conscious. We also know that a number of psychosomatic phenomena which are otherwise outside the control of the will can be induced by hypnosis, that is, by this same restriction of consciousness.”

I’m writing most about synchronicity even though it is only a small fraction of the book, mostly because I found it very interesting but the rest of the book was also great.

[Äsruþr Cyneaþsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible collection of Jung's work. The topics here are essential for those involved in psychology, therapy, the occult, and parapsychology.

The detailed work on the structure and processes of the psyche are essential in understanding how the mind works. Jung naturally includes a discussion on the nature of consciousness which further widens into a discussion of the soul and 'spirits'. Jung's views as to the canalisation of the libido into other channels are invaluable for both the therapist and the magician. Elsewhere, Jung touches on the concept of 'archetypal infaltion' in his assessment of how the archetypes of the collective unconscious may influence the psyche with external thoughts -- the result often being termed 'possession'. The work on synchronicity is also significant in depth and should be viewed as a benchmark of investigation into esoteric fields.

Jung, as always, provides a high degree of quality in his works. The content here also shows that he was fearless in touching upon topics that his contemporaries shunned as fields which were beneath their empiricism.

[Sladjana Kovacevic · Rating 5 out of 5]

KARL GUSTAV JUNG-DINAMIKA NESVESNOG
🛋Umesto recenzije nekoliko citata i teorija iznetih u ovom delu za lakše razumevanje Jungovog pristupa psihoanalizi
✒Predložio sam da pojam energije, koji koristimo u analitičkoj psihologiji, obeležimo rečju »libido«.
✒ Osećajno naglašeni sadržaj, kompleks, sastoji se od jednog jezgrovnog elementa i bezbroj sekundarnih, konstelativnih asocijacija.
✒ jezgrovni elemenat automatski stvara
kompleks u onolikoj meri koliko je afektivno naglašen, to jest u zavisnosti od energetske vrednosti
✒Stoga u praksi lekar sa odgovarajućom spremo posredno prenosi pacijentu transcendentnu funkciju,to jest on pomaže pacijentu da spoji svest i nesvesno,
i da na taj način dospe do novog stava.
✒Cepljivost znači da se delovi psihe odvajaju od svesti u takvoj meri, da se ovi ne pojavljuju samo kao strani, već istovremeno vode i autonomni, sopstveni život. Pri tom ne mora da se radi o histeričnim udvojenim ličnostima ili o šizofrenim alteracijama ličnosti, već samo o kompleksima u okvirima normalnog.
✒Uvek tamo gde se kulturni proces nalazi pred svojim novim razvitkom, bez obzira da li u pojedinačnoj individui ili u grupi, dolazi do oslobađanja od kolektivnih ubeđenja. Svaki kultumi napredak psihološki je proširenje
svesti, postajanje svesnim, koje ne može nastati drugačije do kroz razdvajanje. Stoga napredak uvek počinje sa individuacijom, tj. time što pojedinac, svestan svoje usamljenosti, krči novi put kroz do tada nediruto područje.
✒Instinkt i arhetipovi shvatanja formiraju kolektivno nesvesno.
✒Instinkti bi bili samo takve pojave koje su nasleđeni, svuda isti i pravilno ponavljani nesvesni procesi.
✒Predosećanje ili intuicija je, međutim, po
mome mišljenju jedna od osnovnih funkcija psihe,naime opažanje mogućnosti koje se kriju u određenoj situaciji
✒Posmatrano sa ovog aspekta psiha je u suštini konflikt između slepog nagona i volje, odnosno slobode izbora. Tamo gde preovladava nagon počinju psihoidna zbivanja, koja kao elementi nepristupačni
svesti spadaju u sferu nesvesnog. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
#7sensesofabook #knjige #bookstagram #literature #readingaddict #psychology

[Castles · Rating 4 out of 5]

not a review, but a short reminder of myself in the Jungian reading journey to mark this volume as what seems to be the point where he's less apologetic towards the reader about his ideas of things unscientific, while still remaining a doctor, researcher and a scientist himself.

[Alex Giurgea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cea de a 8-a carte din ciclul Opere Complete este putin mai dificila. Reprezinta lucrari ale lui Jung scrise dupa 20-30 de ani de experienta, atunci cand conceptele au inceput sa se cristalizeze. Sunt abordate viziuni Jungiene asupra visului, modalitati de evaluare a inconstientului personal si colectiv si nu in ultimul rand cea mai ambitioasa teorie a lui Jung, cea a sincronicitatii. As recomanda citirea ei numai dupa ce exista un contact cu opera lui Jung, fiind o carte destul de tehnica.

[Edmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl Jung Volume 8, “The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche” is one of the most important books I have ever read. It answers a lot of questions about modernity and the modern mind. It also shines an intense light on the failure of evangelical theology and how Protestantism is a form of modern atheism. This book changed my life, it rearrange my cognitive furniture, the world is a different place after reading Jung’s Volume 8.

[Frater · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing look at complexes, dreams and the archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. I very much liked the essay on Synchronicity. Jung, with the help of past masters such as Plato and Lao Tzu, along with 20th century physicists Pauli, was able to conclude that matter and mind are closer then we think and can lead to archetypically meaningful events and occurrences.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite heavy going, and requires some background.

[Jessiane Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aquele dia histórico em que você termina de ler A natureza da Psique!!

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marking this book as "read," though one shouldn't be expected to read a six hundred page volume of essays on disparate, challenging topics as one might read a work of fiction.

Over my life I've read a number of books on dreaming. They have ranged greatly in their approaches to the subject, many falling under the categories of philosophy or "theory" to others bordering on the "self-help" genre. Regardless of their approaches to the subject each has invariably cited Jung in some capacity, and I decided that it was time that I too finally read the sources.

For an thinker who has had such a broad influence on modern understanding of the nature of meaning of dreams, his written output expressly devoted to dreams and dreaming is surprisingly small, comprising two essays – less than 60 pages in total – within the eighteen volumes of his collected works. And while he covers many different aspects of the subject of dreaming, from the theories that he had formulated over the course of several decades and supported by the experience from his clinical practice, one particular point struck me as the essence of his views. Namely, when trying to explain a psychological process against "evidence," as he puts it, there are two points of view that one can take – that of causality and that of finality. Jung uses the word "finality" to avoid confusion with the concept of "teleology," but they are intimately related. He says, "by finality I mean merely the immanent psychological striving for a goal. Instead of 'striving for a goal' one could also say 'sense of purpose.'" Freud's view of dreams and the psyche can be summarized by causality: the dream is an outcome whose cause lies somewhere within the unconscious. Jung continues,

Considering a dream from the standpoint of finality, which I contrast to the causal standpoint of Freud, does not ... involve a denial of the dream's causes, but rather a different interpretation of the associative material gathered round the dream. The material facts remain the same, but the criterion by which they are judged is different. The question may be formulated simply as follows: What is the purpose of the dream?

Emphasis mine. Reframing the question away from treating a dream as a piece of evidence or a "clue" in mystery to one approaching recognition of the dream as a partner with purpose or import in one's life seems to me a turning point in the practice of healing arts.

There English edition of Jung's collected works evidently differs from the German edition in how the articles and essays are distributed among the volumes. The volume under review titled The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, and most of its contents that concern the title are translated from a volume called Über psychische Energetik and das Wesen der Träume in the German collected works. Psychische Energetik translates directly as "psychic energy," and the metaphor that Jung is really aiming for is one from physics. In theses essays too he avails himself to a distinction between what he calls the principles of causality and finality in formulating hypotheses about the psyche and its structures – namely the conscious and unconscious – which had been accepted "facts" about the nature of mind since roughly the 1880s. And though Jung does not use the terms explicitly, he regards the causality framework akin to the Newtonian framework from classical mechanics, finality as akin to the Lagrangiam framework, particularly with the conception as a "quantity of energy" that governs the dynamics of events in the psyche. These foundational essays, in any case, are very dense and difficult to follow without an understanding of clinical psychology as practiced in the the early half of the twentieth century.

[John A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is currently my most favorite volume from Carl Jung's work. I found myself very excited as the breadth of my personal readings, was coming all together, and forming an even larger scope from this book.

I've typed out so many quotes and taken so many pictures. Had to get it from the library.

"We have now discovered that it was an intellectually unjustified presumption on our forefathers' part to assume that man has a soul; that that soul has substance, is of divine nature and therefore immortal; that there is a power inherent within it which builds up the body, sustains its life, heals its ills and enables the soul to live independently of the body; that there are incorporeal spirits with which the soul associates; and that beyond our empirical present there is a spiritual world from which the soul receives knowledge of spiritual things whose origins cannot be discovered in this visible world. But people who are not yet discovered that it is just as presumptuous and fantastic to assume that matter produces mind, that apes give rise to human beings, that from the harmonious interplay of the drives of hunger, love, and power Kant's Critique of Pure Reason should have emerged, and that all this could not possibly be other than it is.

What or who, indeed, is this all-powerful matter? It is the old Creator God over again, stripped this time of his anthropomorphic features and taking the form of a universal concept whose meaning everyone presumes to understand." Pg. 341


"If it were possible to personify the unconscious, we might think of it as a collective human being combining the characteristics of both sexes, transcendening youth and age, birth and death, and, from having at its command a human experience of one or two million years, practically immortal. If such a being existed, it would be exalted above all temporal change; the present would mean neither more nor less to it than any year in the hundredth millennium before Christ; it would be a dreamer of age-old dreams and, owing to its limitless experience, an incomparable prognosticator. It would have lived countless times over again the life of the individual, the family, the tribe, and the nation, and it would possess a living sense of the rhythm of growth, flowering, and decay." Pg. 349-350

"...knowing the untold treasures of experience lying hidden beneath the threshold of the ephemeral individual consciousness, always held the individual soul to be dependent on a spiritual world-system. Not only did they make this hypothesis, they assumed without question that they system was a being with a will and consciousness-was even a person-and they called this being God, the quintessence of reality." Pg. 351

My mind is in rapture :D

[Mihai Dascălu · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Când Galilei a descoperit cu ajutorul telescopului sateliții lui Jupiter, s-a izbit imediat de prejudecata învățaților contemporani cu el. Nimeni nu știa ce este un telescop și ce putea el să facă. Nimeni nu vorbise înainte de sateliții lui Jupiter. Desigur, fiecare epocă crede că toate cele de dinaintea ei au avut idei preconcepute, iar astăzi gândim astfel mai mult ca oricând și avem tot atât de puțină dreptate ca și toate vremurile trecute care au gândit în același fel. De câte ori n-am trăit să vedem cum adevărul este condamnat! E trist, dar din păcate adevărat că omul nu învață nimic din istorie.”
Citatul este din capitolul despre sincronicitate ca principiu a corelațiilor acauzale și, pentru mine, spune multe. Da, nu mai suntem arși pe rug, totuși...
Deși în alte cărți am sesizat asta, aici uneori ironia, compasivă, este evidentă, cum e în capitolul „Răscrucea vieții”: „Foarte adesea aceste transformări sunt însoțite de catastrofe matrimoniale de toate felurile, căci nu este greu de imaginat ce se întâmplă atunci când bărbatul își descoperă sentimentele delicate, iar femeia inteligența.”

[Deken Flaherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of Jung’s is more technical and scientific. In it, he illuminates some of his more nuanced and abstract concepts. I view this collection as a lexicon of Jung’s fundamental and basic views.
For those who are familiar with Jung’s buzz words but want a deeper explanation, this is a must read.

This collections is exactly that, a collection of smaller essays jung wrote. The title “structure and dynamics” is a perfect and is very much a de tangling and nuanced look at the whole human mind.

In particular I enjoyed part 3 and 4. But if you stick around to the end you will get a treat in his, Acausal Connecting Principle. What a trip!
Will have to read again.

[Max Yoder · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Stages of Life essay, on its own, is worth the price of admission. I have finished it three times and learned a deeper lesson on each pass. If you wonder what life has to offer outside of achieving, read this essay, then read it again.

As for the rest of the book, I am only a few essays in. But again, the $100 price tag was warranted, at least for me, with The Stages of Life. The remaining 550 pages are upside.

[Shaun Phelps · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, the complexities are just at, and slightly beyond, the limits of my understanding. here we start to leave the floor of pure science into the realm of the acausal. as always with his scientific works, Jung remains grounded within science. he refuses to make claims that are not supported by science, though the entire proof of synchronicity is a struggle, in that his proofs are exactly what a scientist would claim as failured hypothesis. interesting stuff, and the pre-echos of archetypes are here. excited to see what comes next.

[Anton Zlatev · Rating 5 out of 5]

No words for Jung. Exceptional as always.

[Jimmy Ele · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much insight. So many great quotes. Also, the man abides with what I wrote "On Consciousness Existing Outside of Space-Time". That link is below.

https://www.rvrasvm.com/post/jung-abides

[Sigouros Papadatos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best Book I've read in a while.

[Raja Ezzy Akhmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book obsessively during the first year of my degree at the University of Malaya at the second floor of the Main Library, a part of an incomplete set of Jung's Collected Works there. Though I disagree with a part of what Jung has to say and some of his methodology, this was a joyous read full with insights, that I would say is more accessible compared to his more mystical and more "clinical" works during his later and earlier period respectively.

His chapters on dream psychology and the unconscious are as profound, if not more, as his Psychological Types. And reading this again, I recognize the need for there to be a "unification" of sorts between the later developments of Jungian Typology and Jung's notion of personal unconscious, which might just be the missing piece to the framework.

It is my belief that Jung's dream psychology is the closest the Occident has ever got to understanding the dream, though I'm aware, as Jung himself says, that he borrowed much from other psychoanalysts like Adler.

But I remain unconvinced of his idea of collective unconscious, given I've never experienced such "symbolism" before. It seems to me Jung was influenced by his obsessive reading into mysticism and proceeded to project it unto his many anecdotes, especially reinforced by his personal dreams which likely rose from that obsession. Just as Freud projected his obsession of a certain tragic Greek play unto his psychology.

Jung, just like Freud, was a product of his time. And his psychoanalysis is a product of his own psychology and cultural presuppositions. But these papers as some of the better products of the early 20th century.

[Mert · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 Stars (%74/100)

Carl Jung’s The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche (Collected Works, Vol. 8) is a foundational text that delves into the complex layers of the human psyche, exploring concepts such as the unconscious, the persona, the shadow, and the anima/animus. Jung’s rigorous analysis of the psyche’s structure provides crucial insights into the processes of individuation and the role of archetypes in psychological development. While its dense theoretical language can be challenging, the book is an essential read for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of Jungian psychology and its profound implications for personal growth and self-awareness.

[Paola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Per il momento letto quanto mi abbisognava e cioé:
2. La funzione trascendente
3. Considerazioni generali sulla teoria dei complessi;
7. La struttura della psiche (coscienza, inconscio personale, inconscio collettivo);
9. Considerazioni generali sulla psicologia del sogno;
10. L'essenza dei sogni.