Customer Reviews

The Essential Jung

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if you're unacquainted with Jung (as I was) and are looking for an introduction and overview of his contributions to psychology, then this is going to be a tough read and probably not what you want.

Essentially this book contains various writings of Jung which are a sampler, if you will, of the important ideas that he contributed to psychology such as the concepts of the collective unconscious, archetypes, personality types, syncronicity, mandalas, dream interpretation, etc.

Be aware that in these writings, Jung is addressing himself to his contemporaries who are well versed in the jargon of psychology.

Overall, I learned quite a bit about Jung and his ideas by reading this book but I also feel that I would have benefited more if I had already read some type of layman's guide to Jung's ideas before tackling this book.

_Some years ago I chose this excellent volume to round out my understanding of Jung's work. I had been exposed to the basics of his theories, as well as having read several of his complete works, but I didn't want to be accused of "picking and choosing" among his entire body of work. While I would one day like to read his complete 18 volumes of Collected Works I didn't have the time or resources back then. I found this to be a well-selected, comprehensive sampling. It not only rounded out my knowledge, but it both served as a good review for what I already knew, while pointing me to further study in areas that I was previously only vaguely aware of.

Part 1: Jung's Early Work
Part 2: Jung's Involvement with Freud and His Divergence from Freud's Theories
Part 3: The Development of the Idea of the Collective Unconscious and of Archetypes
Part 4: Archetypes: Shadow, Shadow, Anima, Animus, the Persona, the Wise Old Man
Part 5: Psychological Types and the Self-regulating Psyche
Part 6: The Development of the Individual
Part 7: Integration, Wholeness, and the Self
Part 8: Self and Opposites: God and the Problem of Evil
Part 9: Unus Mundus and Synchronicity
Part 10: Man and his Future

_The table of contents makes it clear where each selection was drawn from. Moreover, each selection is prefixed with the exact page numbers referenced to the Collected Works. There is an appendix of the Chronology of Jung's Life and Work. Further, there is a very useful glossary of Jung's terminology. This is followed by a detailed bibliography. There is a full index. There are several black and white pages illustrating mandalas.

Stor has done a wonderful thing in presenting Jung's voluminous works in a single volume. Although the content may at times be intimidating, the sections flow easily enough. If you are going to read any book this year, then this should be the one. Jung makes it absolutely clear the challenge that faces the modern mind, caught between reason and faith. In the last section he gives due emphasis to the struggle between the individual and the state. In short, this book is true wisdom for all to meditate upon.

Though upon attempting to read this I realized I'm nowhere near smart enough, it's a great book full of Jung's better essays and other prose.

Treating someone of the caliber of Jung the way this book does is at best a very bad joke. Carl Jung was not a pop group, hence presenting his theories in a fragmented way by giving us a bit of this and a bit of that in a totally disconnected manner helps noone.
It certainly doesn't do any justice to a mind like the one Jung possesed and it definately won't help any type of reader interested in Jung:

-for those already acquainted with the Jungian theories this book is going to be an utter waste of time. It doesn't help you go any deeper or progress in acquanting yourself with Jung's mindset and in no way does it work as a "reference book" which is what i imagine was the premise of the author who assembled this disastrously bad collection of Jungian essays together. In order for such an endeavour to have any hope for function ti would need to be at least 4 times the volume it has. Why do say that? Well, for starters, the essays presented in this book are so short, so much out of any coherence, and so taken out of context, that even Jung himself would've trouble detecting where they are taken from...

-for those NOT acquainted with Jungian thought, reading this book merely means that they will remain NOT acquanited with Jungian thought. I can't put it in a starker way than this and i feel no need to elaborate on this further. If you want to introduce yourself to the Jungian school of thought DO NOT under any circumstances begin with this book because you're running the risk of actually being turned off alltogether..

Start instead with "Memories, dreams and reflections". That is written by Jung himself, and while it's an excellent presentation to the way Jung approached psychology and psychotherapy, it's at the same time sort of an autobiography as well as a seriously insightful and as influential a book as they come...