Customer Reviews

On Jung

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The reader is treated to both a concise statement of Carl Gustav Jung's theories of life-stage development and a parallel narrative of Jung's experiences as he moved through each of these stages. Stevens traces the idea of the unconscious from its conception (which he believed to be around 1700) to the earliest investigations by Freud in the 1890s. The split between Freud and Jung (essentially spirituality versus sexuality) is described as having a profoundly shattering effect on Jung, as it had on others ejected from the Freudian camp for their failure to endorse, without question, Freud's theories that all neuroses is based in sexual development. (Two of these ex-Freudians actually committed suicide after being spurned by Freud.) Stevens's unique method of combining a primer of Jung life-stage theory with a biography of Jung is an effective introduction to the man and his work.

This is a review of "On Jung" by Anthony Stevens.

Before reading this book, I had already read several books on Jung, including Anthony Stevens book in the very short introduction series (VSI). In fact, because I liked the latter, I decided to buy another of his books on Jung. I think it is fair to say that this book is written in the same style as the VSI: it makes rather light reading, avoids too much jargon where possible, but at the same time "On Jung" definitely goes into more depth than the VSI. Which is a good thing because the VSI was meant as a VSI only.

"On Jung" has two interwoven pieces of content: first it describes the various stages of life as seen from a Jungian perspective, and simultaneously it gives short biographic sketches of Jung's own life as an illustration of Jung's theory. It will be no surprise that the two are found to fit each other very well. This double format comes across as very didactical to me: each Jungian concept is explained in two different ways so to say.

Bottom line: I enjoyed the book, it helped me to better understand Jung's psychology. Perhaps now I even feel prepared enough to start reading some of Jung's own books (which have the reputation of difficult to read)!

Recommendation: for readers completely new to Jung, I would recommend a shorter more-introductory text first, e.g. Stevens VSI; "On Jung" is excellent as a second book, for those who already know something on Jung. If you are more interested in a biography, I would defintely recommend Jung's own "Memories, Dreams, Reflections".

Excellent introduction to Jungian theory as it developed out of Carl Jung's own personal quest for individuation--waking up from the constricting consciousness of his own personal ego and that of social norms. His theory of "Analytical psychology" is naturally a production of his own consciousness. He was a living example of the theory he constructed.The theory evolved dialectically as a result of his own personal experiences that he objectified as the individuation process, which in turn guided his future choices to move in the direction that the theory pointed. There is a remarkable correspondence to Eastern wisdom traditions' teachings of liberation of the Self through enlightenment. Jung represents a much more encompassing perspective than Freud, from whom he parted ways. In Freud's topology of the psyche, consciousness is the tip of the iceberg; the majority of the submerged mass of the iceberg represents the personal unconscious. Jung adds to this the ocean in which all icebergs float--the ocean is the collective unconscious of humanity. The collective unconscious consists of the archetypal forms that influence conscious cognition (e.g. the masculine and feminine principles). Freud is often credited as discovering the unconscious, but that is absurd. Freud did however make it a subject of scientific study and perhaps was the first to systematically give it a technical language. But the unconscious has long been deliberately expressed in artforms (painting, poetry, plays, etc.) shammanic rituals, and philosophy (ancient Greeks). Jung understood this, so studied alchemy, religion, and anthropology to inform his developing psychology. Whereas Freud's work inspired masters of spin and manipulation in marketing and politics, Jung's work inspired the human potential movement and transpersonal psychology. The book's format of using Jung's biographical information to illustrate and explain the theory Jung constructed is an excellent way to gain deep insights at the introductory level.