A review by clay1st
Man and His Symbols by C.G. Jung
3.0
This book, written jointly by Jung and his colleagues summarizes some of his key ideas about the human psyche.
He makes an effort to delineate his theories from those of Freud, nonetheless the heritage of his ideas is very clear.
Jung theorizes that dreams contain wise and important messages from the subconscious in the form of symbols and metaphors, whose universal function is to provide guidance towards some sort of psychic equilibrium. This is analogous to Freud's theory that dreams contain unconscious desires. Jung (more so than Freud) fails to account for the obvious pitfall of this theory, that waking psychic pathologies are often replicated in sleep (i.e. anxious people have anxiety dreams). Perhaps he does this better in his original works on dream symbology... however it was not for lack of space in this book that this was missed as dreams were discussed extensively.
Another serious criticism of Jung's interpretation of dreams given as examples in this book is that they appear to be needlessly complex and sometimes excessively literal, which is ironic considering the centrality of symbology in his work. In some cases miss what appears to me to be the more obvious symbolic meaning of the dream.
A critical deconstruction of an example Jung's dream interpretation:
Jung dreams about finding a new room in his childhood home containing books with symbols and untold knowledge. he interprets to be a sign from his unconscious that a book he saw recently on Alchemy contains the secret to understanding the subconscious. My interpretation would be that this dream simply reflects Jung (and Freud's) theories that there /is/ a subconscious part of the mind (the new room) and that childhood experiences are important in shaping both the conscious and unconscious mind (the childhood home), Jung and Freud are both proponents of a revolutionary theory the significance of the subconscious in understanding of the human psyche and treatment of psychopathology, so it is natural that within this new room he discovers books containing untold knowledge.
Other times Jung's interpretation is needlessly complex. He extensively analyses the dream of a young girl who dreams about a demon killing all animals and them subsequently being brought back to life. This is clearly an amalgamation of Christian biblical tales including the story of Noah's arc and the resurrection of Christ. That's it.
Jung's idea of the so-called collective unconscious is interesting but poorly explained. From what I understand, Jung is proposing that symbols are readily added to human instinctual drives, which are transmitted (?genetically or spiritually) from generation to generation. The significance of this proposition is not really explained, other than it backing up his theory about symbology within dreams carries secret messages from the subconscious.
He makes an effort to delineate his theories from those of Freud, nonetheless the heritage of his ideas is very clear.
Jung theorizes that dreams contain wise and important messages from the subconscious in the form of symbols and metaphors, whose universal function is to provide guidance towards some sort of psychic equilibrium. This is analogous to Freud's theory that dreams contain unconscious desires. Jung (more so than Freud) fails to account for the obvious pitfall of this theory, that waking psychic pathologies are often replicated in sleep (i.e. anxious people have anxiety dreams). Perhaps he does this better in his original works on dream symbology... however it was not for lack of space in this book that this was missed as dreams were discussed extensively.
Another serious criticism of Jung's interpretation of dreams given as examples in this book is that they appear to be needlessly complex and sometimes excessively literal, which is ironic considering the centrality of symbology in his work. In some cases miss what appears to me to be the more obvious symbolic meaning of the dream.
A critical deconstruction of an example Jung's dream interpretation:
Jung dreams about finding a new room in his childhood home containing books with symbols and untold knowledge. he interprets to be a sign from his unconscious that a book he saw recently on Alchemy contains the secret to understanding the subconscious. My interpretation would be that this dream simply reflects Jung (and Freud's) theories that there /is/ a subconscious part of the mind (the new room) and that childhood experiences are important in shaping both the conscious and unconscious mind (the childhood home), Jung and Freud are both proponents of a revolutionary theory the significance of the subconscious in understanding of the human psyche and treatment of psychopathology, so it is natural that within this new room he discovers books containing untold knowledge.
Other times Jung's interpretation is needlessly complex. He extensively analyses the dream of a young girl who dreams about a demon killing all animals and them subsequently being brought back to life. This is clearly an amalgamation of Christian biblical tales including the story of Noah's arc and the resurrection of Christ. That's it.
Jung's idea of the so-called collective unconscious is interesting but poorly explained. From what I understand, Jung is proposing that symbols are readily added to human instinctual drives, which are transmitted (?genetically or spiritually) from generation to generation. The significance of this proposition is not really explained, other than it backing up his theory about symbology within dreams carries secret messages from the subconscious.