Jung: The Key Ideas

the Key ideas

by Ruth Snowden

CARL JUNG MADE EASY
Jung - the Key Ideas is designed to quickly familiarize you with the revolutionary thinking of Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology. Explaining Jung's complex ideas in simple terms, and backing it up with references to his own texts, you will learn all the essential concepts, from the collective unconscious to archetypes in dreams.

You will learn about Jung's upbringing and the development of his thinking. Discover his early work and influences and how they came to shape his ideological and spiritual development. The intricacies of Jung's complex systems of thought are discussed in a straightforward and jargon-free way with particular focus on his lifelong fascination with the spiritual, the numinous, the inner world and the self-realization of the unconscious.

Jung's exploration of mythology, dreams, visions and fantasies, as well as his studies into the journey of the psyche, are all explained, making often complex theories easy to get to grips with and the book also looks at his legacy and how his work and ideas have shaped psychology with many therapists still trained in the Jungian method.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Audiobook

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 26, 2010

Reviews

[Daniel Ramsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book by accident. Always have been interested in Carl Jung. Having been training as a counsellor and feeling an affinity to psychoanalytic forms of therapy, Carl Jung seemed like a great place to start.
This was a great read touching on all the 'need to know' ideas and facts of Jung. i particularly liked the way the chapters are summed up in a 'key ideas' section at the end of each chapter. Really gave me an insight in to the man himself, his life, and his ideas. I do find that the writer of this book was very fond of the man and sometimes her bias became obvious.
overall a great beginner book about Jung and made me aware that all Psychologists are crazy themselves. Somewhat comforting for me as I'm studying in the field myself.

[Loza Boza · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has done an excellent job summarising a huge amount of Jung's work as well as providing biographical details. The book is very readable but still presents the key theories in depth. I read this over the christmas break and although only 180 pages long it took quite a while as it is necessary to stop and consider Jung's theories and how they relate to your own life.

I use goodreads to help me remember the books I have read so the following is my own personal aide memoire:

Chapter 1 - Biographical information only.

Chapter 2 - Gives a lot of background on how Jung was a solitary child, dogmatic christian father, profound and vivid dreams during childhood, and how his personality was almost shocked into change during adolescence.

Chapter 3 - Jung had been a collaborative partner with Freud but their disagreements led to an acrimonious split. The ideas that Jung was pursuing were very ground breaking and led to fear, derision and isolation. As a result Jung had a mid-life crisis and he used this period of depression to explore his "shadow" self, this took a lot of courage and he felt that he was on the edge of psychosis himself.

This period in his life saw him produce the main tenet of his theory that:
- We all have archetypal psychic patterns that reside at a deep level of the unconscious.
- Mythology helps to explain these psychic patterns
- Creative play helps us to access and understand our unconscious.
- The goal of psychic development is individuation. Discovery of the true self through exploring any manifestations of the unconscious (dreams and neuroses) and then resolving and connecting to the conscious ego this hitherto hidden part of our psyche.

Chapter 4 - Jung structured the psyche as: the conscious mind, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. He said that the unconscious was comprised of multiple complexes, these didn't need to be negative and act as as sub-personality. If complexes become too negatively charged or become in conflict with each other then mental illness or neuroses can appear. The mother complex for example is a strong complex that starts as babies but can be added to throughout our life.

The collective unconscious is where Jung believes all humans share social archetypes that act as blueprint for our development of personality. This includes sex and power drives.

Jung differed from Freud in his definition of the ego which he saw as the ego-conscious. He saw this as balancing the conscious and unconscious parts of our self. The ego creates a "persona" which is what we show the outer world. Jung felt that it was important to engage with our unconscious "shadow" to balance our conscious selves and become more effective human beings. He felt that the shadow was countering our conscious selves but that the closer these two became the less work our brain would need to understand its surroundings and its place. THis concept is extremely similar to those concepts raised in Kanheman's Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow.

In particular, and based on the time period Jung was alive, he labelled the need to engage with both our Anima (female characteristics e.g. emotions) and Animus (male characteristics e.g. logical). Whilst dated in terms of gender split the concept that strengths and weaknesses need to be balanced out is the key concept.

Libido is a general psychic energy with Jung and is not associated with sexual libido as it is in Freud's work.

Chapter 5 - Jung said that basic principles at work in the psyche:
1 - Everything in the psyche naturally has an opposite aspect.
2 - Equal amounts of energy are given to the opposites, otherwise energy becomes blocked.
3 - Principle of entropy is in play, as energy becomes evenly distributed it is run down.

Neuman (Jung's apprentice) identified seven archetypal stages of the collective unconscious which lay out a blueprint for where our psyche should adapt:

1 - world creation
2 - Great mother
3 - separation of the World Parents
4 - birth of the Hero (the individual's ego-conscious arises, Jung placed this at puberty)
5 - slaying of the dragon
6 - rescue of the captive
7 - transformation and deification of the hero

In order to achieve individuation it is important to move forward with the flow of our lives and not get stuck in the previous stages of development.

Jung said that the first half of life should be concerned with establishing ourselves in the world. The second half should be concerned with more spiritual concerns.

Chapter 6 - Huge importance of dreams.
- Jung's theory on why dreams are a safe place for our unconscious to manifest.
- Jung also felt that dreams were our mind's opportunity to bring back lessons from the collective unconscious.
- Jung saw dreams bringing attention to the inner and outer aspects of our life we haven't consciously considered.

Jung saw dreams as complicated intuitive structures. Unlike Freud he did not subscribe to generic symbolism but felt the symbolic nature of dreams needed to be interpreted by the individual.

Dream analysis can be aided by considering the dream in the following four stages:
Exposition - setting the scene and introduction of main characters
Development of the plot - we wonder what is going to happen
Culmination - something decisive happens or complete change occurs
Lysis - the conclusion of the dream is reached (often after the dream has occurred)

Chapter 7 - Jung created the following personality types for help in psychoanalysis:

Extrovert
Introvert

He then followed up with the following functions

Thinking - logic and intellect
Feeling - evaluating and assessing based on traditional values. Human relationships are important to these "warm, creative" people
Sensing - these people very much based on material facts. Can be lacking in imagination and may appear rational and practical whilst actually not being.
Intuition - Dreamy type people who think in terms of chances, possibilities, the past and future.

Chapter 8 - Jung studied esoteric (secret mystical knowledge) and the paranormal including astrology for inspiration and insight into the psyche and the collective unconscious.

Chapter 9 - Jung concluded that Eastern religions were mainly introverted looking for meaning within the self. Western religions were more extroverted searching for meaning in the 'real world'.

Jung felt that religious dogma was inhibiting for spiritual insight and that all religions should be studied to gain greater understanding of the spiritually divine and archetypal patterns that are within our unconscious.

Jung believed that religions need to grow and evolve to answer the deep spiritual needs of ordinary people.

[Cveti Angelova · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clear and engaging introduction to Jung’s world. Ruth Snowden explains complex ideas—like archetypes, the shadow, and individuation—in a way that’s easy to follow but still thought-provoking.
Packed with real-life examples, this book makes Jung’s psychology feel practical and inspiring.
Perfect both for beginners and for anyone wanting a structured refresher.

[Rahul Banerjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly readable book that introduces Carl Jung and his work on psychoanalysis. More of a textbook than an anthology of primary writings, the book is well structured with a useful glossary and chapter summaries. Definitely recommended for people who are interested in understanding the core ideas of his psychoanalytic theories but do not have the time, patience or the necessity to go through all his original works.

[Felicity Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covering key concepts by way of everything from 'Jung's life and career' and 'Jung the visionary' by way of, amongst other topics,'Dreams and symbols' and 'Religion and spirituality', I thought this a concise, perfectly adequate if somewhat basic introduction to the life and work of one of psychology's most well known names. The laying out what we can expect to learn at the beginning of each chapter; the short bullet point summary at the end making it easy to dip in and out of as and when and thus not at all daunting.

Copyright ... Tracy Terry @ Pen and Paper

[Jayne Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bleurgh, a sickeningly biassed view of Jung which puts him on a pedestal, lacks self-awareness, has many incorrect references and presents opinion as fact. I gave 2 stars instead of 1 star because I enjoy some of the ideas of Jung and am interested to read more of his works. This book was not well written but I tried to see through the bias and take from it what I wanted.

[Ryan McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"His only comfort was to sit upon his stone and ponder on the fact that the stone had no uncertainties and stayed eternally the same for thousands of years without experiencing all the angst and emotion that coursed through him."

Highly recommended for anyone interested in Jung.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro

[Gabriel Woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not usually give very bad reviews for a book. As an author I know that writing a book can be challenging but this book, as we say in Ireland, "took the biscuit". The book summarizes Jungs`s theories, I have read both poorly written books and very informative educational books about Jungian theory and the therapy he developed. This was the worst book about this subject I have ever read.

Writing a book is not easy at times but if an author needs to educate themselves on a subject it is wise to do so rather than pretend the author has knowledge of whatever topic he or she is writing about.
This book has very little knowledge about Jungian ideas and therapy. The whole subject of this book is so overgeneralized that the book informs the reader of very little and for those wanting to learn about Jungian theory I would say is of no use at all.
Many people still use his ideas today sometimes in a casual manner and often used in counselling or life coaching courses.

I know much of Jung`s theory as I have a psychology degree from University College Dublin, a counselling course from Maynooth University and a Distinction grade in a Fetac life coaching course. My opinion of this book does carry some weight.
An example of the poverty of knowledge in this book is the author`s description of Archetypes. Jung believed that humanity has twelve types of person that he developed from mythology particularly but not limited to Greek and Roman mythology.
Jung wrote several treatises on this section of his theory yet only two small pages are allotted to this central aspect of Jung`s theory in Jung: The Key Ideas.

I would not recommend this book.

[Damian Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't known anything about Jung other than his name and the fact he'd had a major impact in the world of psychology. I know a lot more now thanks to the'potted' style of the information contained.

I have seen other books that were much slimmer than this one and having experience reading them I can say that those aren't a good place to start. This book is a bit like a short biography with chapters breaking parts of Jung's life and ideas down. There's bullet points to highlight key ideas and a short summary at the end of each chapter telling you what to remember.

I love the format and will be on the lookout for others like it. I'm currently reading one about Freud also by the same author and enjoying this one as much.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently, Jung discovered the observer effect (well ahead of his time!!), spent decades figuring out how to explain why cathedrals are vulnerable to weighty, skyborne shit using alchemy and astrology, then happily diddled his eager mistress and wife, one in each hand, before conducting therapy on neurotic women who didn't understand their husband's feminine desires.

Jung may have been a 'smart man' with a crackpot vein, but Ruth Snowden doesn't strike me as being much the same, animus dominantur.

[Лора Дулова · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so unimpressed by the book about Freud that I didn't bother to remember who wrote it, hence didn't recognise the author of this masterpiece right here by her name. But by the end of the first chapter I knew that my time would be wasted once again.

[Ekaterina Borisova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Написана на лек и достъпен език, с пояснения и референции, книгата дава доста добро обобщение за работата на Карл Юнг. Мен успя да ме заинтригува да прочета още нещо от учена.

[Frtaberna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect introduction, it gives you an overview of all aspects of Jung’s thought while also describing the context of his life story in which he came upon them. The author has a very clean writing style perfectly suited for this format: clear but not dry, and simple without sacrificing the richness of Jung’s theories. The explanations relating to the mystic and esoteric influences in his work were also very understandable and I think they do a good job in dissipating prejudice on their applicability for serious intellectual work in the 20th century and beyond.
Regarding Jung himself, all of his ideas are incredibly resonant and unique. He is one of the few greatly celebrated modern thinkers who successfully blended many areas of knowledge and human experience (the philosophical, psychological, sociological, esoteric, religious, poetic, eastern and western) into a comprehensive body of knowledge that is just so stimulating and rings true when applied as a way of interpreting what happens in our inner lives and externally as well. His thought has percolated everywhere, so it’s a good idea to know where theories that he formulated like introversion (the mbti system of personality is a slight variation of his own system, which is almost the same), extroversion, archetypes, collective unconscious, psyche, individuation, come from. He is truly a really powerful thinker.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction to Jung from an author who clearly knows her subject well. As with the other books in this series, we begin with a page-long list bulletpointing the 'least you need to know', followed by a few pages expounding those bulletpoints in slightly more detail, before the core of the book itself starts. I found this to be a useful learning tool, meaning that I can return back to it at any time and be reminded of the key material using a few simple triggers. The core material, at less than 200 pages, was obviously never going to be able to explore Jung's ideas in any great depth, but Snowden manages to cover the key concepts in a fair amount of detail. The only thing I'd like to see more of is how Jung's ideas can be reconciled with modern science; she touched upon this very briefly, but I think a bit more detail here might have been beneficial for the modern, western reader. 7/10

[Kattermerrang · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great in helping me understand Jung and his ideas - which is quite clearly the goal of this book.

It concentrates on Jung's biography, how his ideas were formed, his collaboration with Freud and how he went on to distance himself from Freud and what Jung's own ideas were. The book is broken into manageable chunks with summaries at the end and text boxes explaining certain terms. I found it easy to get my head around and feel I have a much better grasp on Jung and analytical psychology.

Snowden seems to have a very strong regard for Jung and writes about him in a positive way. When it comes to criticisms of Jung using alchemy and astronomy to inform his work, which was perceived to be unscientific, she says that these criticisms are 'misunderstood' but doesn't go into why. I would have liked this to be clarified.

Other than the positive bias, I found this book very useful in helping me gain understanding and would be open to reading more 'Teach Yourself' books!

[Bahareh · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتابي بينهايت كاربردي براي كشف و آشنايي با ناخودآگاه و نقش ناخودآگاه در روان انسان.بحران ميان سالي و آشنا شدن با سفر روان براي رسيدن به كهن سالي با سلامت روح و روان.براي حفظ سلامت روح و روان خود،بايد شروع به درك و مطالعه خويشتن و سرشت معنوي خود نماييم كه كار ساده اي نيست.يونگ معتقد است كه ما انسانها در نيمه اول زندگي خود چنان درگير امور معيشتي،كسب شهرت و تشكيل خانواده ميشويم كه نيمه دوم زندگي ما متاثر از اين فرهنگ ميشود.
بخش مهم ديگر كتاب مربوط به بررسي روياها و تفاوت نظرات فرويد و يونگ در اين زمينه هست.بنظر فرويد رويا به انسان امكان ميدهد كه موضوعات منع شده يا خواسته هاي سركوب شده كه در بيداري تحت كنترل هستند از ضمير ناخودآگاه فرد بيرون امده و به سطح ضمير خودآگاه بيايند و اينگونه رويا رو ميشه محافظت كننده و آرامش دهنده روان دونست اما يونگ معتقده رويا پيام حقيقت و واقعيت درونيه فرد است .پيام مهمي است از ضمير ناخودآگاه و ميتواند نقش كليدي در كمك كردن به اشخاص در روند فرديت شان باشد.

[Damian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very easy to read piece that clearly explains the ideas of Jung, which others say are extremely difficult and abstract. Kudos to Ruth Snowden on achieving this feat.

I only wish the sections on Jung's life was made briefer; I appreciate that they are necessary to explaining the affective component of Jung's ideas, but I think they could have been made shorter.

Nonetheless, thoroughly enjoyed this book, and, more importantly, I learned a lot about myself and my own behaviour, enough to try and improve myself.

[perro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in Jung's life, and this book was a nice summary. It probably went to long on the esoteric and religious views, while I was mostly interested in the psychology. But I guess you get everyone of Jung ideas, the good and the not-so-good. It repeated itself at times. But in general, it was OK.

[Michelle Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic no frills bio of Karl Jung. Doesn't delve into his work as much as I would have liked, but this is not intended to be that kind of book. I could have done without the author talking about herself though.

[Fereydoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب به شدت خوانا و گیرا که نیمه اول اون به زندگی نامه کارل یونگ بنیان گذار روانشناسی تحلیلی اختصاص داده شده بود و نیمه دوم به تفکرات و آثار ایشون..
من خیلی بیوگرافی نمیخونم ولی این یکی واقعا جذاب بود

[Onur Gözütok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great way to have more idea about Jung. Everything being told in a compact way, also gives you topics of whatever you want to discover more about his works.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple introduction to Jung. I was hoping it went into a little more detail on some of Jung's concepts. It has given me a good foundation to move on to some of Jung's own work.

[Sebastian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has such a hard on for Jung yeet

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro to Jung!

[Housni · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introduction to Jung world.

[Pankaj Chopra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely helpful book to get quickly familiarised with Carl Jung.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction, but I wonder if this book did enough to address and critically engage with the problematic issues inherent to Jung’s work...

[Hendri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal!

[Johann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great summary of Jung's work and to help readers find more specifically what aspects of his work they might want to explore