The World of Symbol – Jungian Analytical Psychology

First Force in Psychology

Indeed, we do not just use our symbols, we are our symbols. The symbols and concept of God, each other, and physical reality that make up the furniture of our inner life, through which we worship, create, love, pursue truth, and create the beautiful, constitute both our immediate and ultimate experience of reality. These symbols create us, no less than we create them. Change our symbols and we change not only our reality, but ourselves.
Thomas Kelting (1995)

Often given cursory mention in history and system textbooks, Carl Jung should be recognized as the co-founder of the psychoanalytic movement. As Freud’s chosen successor, Jung’s importance to the current modern world cannot be overstated. Although their disagreements were significant, they both believed in the importance of the unconscious. To simplify, Freud focused on the dangerous, and Jung on the creative and wise aspects of the unconscious. Together, they laid the foundation for a balanced view of unconscious processes.

Although Freud acknowledged the importance of symbols and myths, Jung made those concepts key to his Analytical Psychology. For Jung, a symbol is the language of the unconscious, a way to understand a world that often feels confusing and strange. In a world struggling to cope with its current challenges, Jungian psychology balances the dark forces of the personal Freudian unconscious with the creative and universality of the Jungian collective unconscious. A symbol allows for the experience of universal meaning and a connection to the totality of human experience.

World of Symbol
In this chapter, the focus will be on the modern genius, Carl Jung, who reestablished the importance of symbol in modern psychology. Jung believed when the mind explores a symbol it experiences a world beyond the limitations of the ego. That is why all the religions employ symbols because symbols represent a spiritual experience that cannot be fully explained. Beyond religion, Jung argues that all people, to experience the totality of being human, routinely produce symbols unconsciously and spontaneously through dreams, art, literature, mythology.