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The Portable Jung (Portable Library)

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Edited by Joseph Campbell, this 650 page book does a phenomenal job of encapsulating the essence of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung's psychological concepts. The Introduction gives us an overview of Dr. Jung's life and published books which is no small task. The book starts out by describing the functions of the psyche and how it develops from childhood and throughout the lifespan. The role of instinct and the unconcsious are described next. The role of archetypes and the collective unconcsious is given a thorough review. The psychological types: of extraversion and introversion are connected with the feeling, thinking, sensing, and intuitive functions as theorized by Jung. Dream symbolism and alchemy are analyzed in depth. The roles of transcendence, the anima, animus, shadow and synchronicity are examined in the development of the psyche, as man creates meaning in life. This is one of the best introductions to Jungian psychology on the market. It provides a great sampling of his works and simplifies the concepts for the average reader. Most readers will delve further into the vast universe of Jungian psychology immediately after reading just this one book. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

The introduction to this volume, written by Joseph Campbell, promises that anyone who proceeds through it faithfully from the first page to the last will emerge with a substantial understanding of Analytical Psychology and a new realization of the psychological relevance of mythic lore to his or her psychological development. Having read its nearly 700 pages from the first to the last, I can attest that it has lived up to its promise. The Campbell introduction provides a good overview of Jung's life along with a detailed chronology. The English translation by R. F. C. Hull is very readable; however, Jung's writings are very scholarly and contain a good deal of Latin and Greek. Most of the Latin and Greek is parenthetically translated, but not all. Not being adept at those languages, I found it helpful to have a Latin-English and a Greek-English dictionary available for reference. Although Jung can be very abstruse at times, for the most part his concepts are clearly expressed and supported with concrete examples. The book begins with a selection of works designed to help the novice learn Jung's terminology and basic concepts. After building the appropriate foundation, it then ranges through a cross section of his life's work including the psychological aspects of marriage, personality types, art, dream symbolism, science, religion, and Eastern and Western culture. Jung was first and foremost, an empiricist. He offers no metaphysical theories to explain the psyche, but he takes great pains in documenting and correlating its tremendous variety of conscious and unconscious content. He establishes the reality of the psyche as a whole (conscious and unconscious) on its observable effects. His concepts of the collective unconscious with its archetypal images, the transcendental function, synchronicity, his views on God, and other insights are amazing and engagingly fascinating. He manages to entangle the reader in a bewildering world of arcane images from mythology and alchemy in his dream interpretation sequences. In spite of the natural skepticism one may feel toward the relevance of these unconscious archetypes, it is difficult to avoid the discomfiting feeling that there is, after all, a great deal of relevance there. For anyone wishing to broaden his or her consciousness and understanding of the human psyche, the time and effort needed to purchase the results promised in the introduction is well spent.

I am not a psychologist. I am a curious reader who wanted to know more about Jung's psychology. I had not read any of Jung's work before, and now, having read the book, I feel I have a good grasp of Jung's major concepts.

Joseph Campbell edits this volume and writes a nice introduction, explaining briefly Jung's major achievements. At the end, he's included an outline of Jung's complete works, which catalogs the amazing fecundity of Jung's mind. I was hoping that Campbell, hero of mythology that he is, would have included some of Jung's mythological work in this book, like a clip from "Symbols of Transformation," but he didn't. What a pity.

After Campbell's intro, the book consists of three parts: one focusing on Jung's theory, one on Jung's application of his theory, and the third part contains some curiosities that demonstrate the range of Jung's thinking.

(Part I) Introduces Jung's Big Ideas. The collective unconscious; archetypes; the psychological types (introversion/extroversion and all that jazz). Most of this section is easy and stimulating to get through, until you hit the psychological types, which get very technical. If you think about how the types apply in real life to people you know, it makes plowing through Jung's dry descriptions a little easier.

(Part II) Jung in action. Campbell gives us a healthy serving of Jung's dream analyses, which I recommend skimming, unless you're really into alchemical symbology. The two essays on contemporary life are still fresh.

(Part III) The essay on synchronicity is a mind-bending read, and it makes you suddenly aware of all those little coincidences in life. "An Answer to Job" starts off as a playful, almost Nietzschean essay where Jung performs a psychological deconstruction on the god of the Old Testament. Then it degenerates into a discussion of the psychological development of the idea of god as traced through the Bible, which turns out to be not exciting as it sounds.

Even if Jung occasionally crosses the boundary of credibility, you get the sense that he's a true scholar, dedicated first and foremost to seeking the truth. This volume is a good peep into the mind of one of the twentieth century's most daring thinkers exploring the uncharted depths of the human psyche.

Another good intro to Jung that's easier to get through is "Man and his Symbols."

I've put off reading up on anything more "core" Jungian than Man and His Symbols and Memories, Dreams, Reflections, because I believed the story that he was difficult to follow. The book is exciting! Jung's insight and sense of humor shine through as does his self-consciousness about being part of a science still in it's infancy. I've also read VonFranz's intro to symbolism in Alchemy, and I'm sure other things Jung has written attain that density, or greater(/worse). I've no idea how much is owed to the editing of Campbell, but Jung is so lucid in this book that much of what he describes seems almost like (experienced) common sense by the time he's done.

For those interested in getting their feet a little wet in Jung, this book is perfect. His collected works are well represented here and the reader, if interested, will find several pathways marked here that can be taken further. The plus of this book is Joseph Campbell's introduction. He is always on the mark.

This concise little book was my initiation into the ideas of one of the founding fathers of psychiatry, Carl Jung. I found it to be as clear & complete as possible outside of actually going through Jungian therapy itself.

Any beginning psychology student wishing to understand Jung's emphasis on symbolism & archetypes would do well to pick this up (along with Man & His Symbols). The highlight of the book is the text On Synchronicity, with Jung, himself, detailing how we ascribe meaning to events we consider "signs", and the impact on our lives.

This book can also provide an understanding of Jung's infamous split with Freud, who had been his mentor. Jung's theories show themselves to be much more adaptable to the spiritual & individual conflicts of a person rather than the primitive bestiality of Freud's "id". Jung acknowledges a person's capacity to reflect & restore, therefore empowering a patient to find guidance & direction in harmony WITH his beliefs.

Carl Gustav Jung was born in1875 in a small Swiss village of Kessewil. His father was a country parson, as were other relatives. Jung began studying classics at a very early age (as young as six), and became an expert in ancient languages and literature, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit. His first academic choice was archaeology, but instead studied medicine at the University of Basel. While working under famed neurologist Krafft-Ebing, he decided upon psychiatry. He worked with schizophrenics, and is also the inventor of the word-association process in therapy. He had a long-time admiration of Freud, one of the founders of his field, and met him in 1907 (in what was reported to have been a 13-hour long conversation!). A close association followed, but only for a few years, as Jung's ideas began to vary somewhat with Freud, and Freud's occasional paranoia crept into the relationship. After 1909, they were distant.

Jung was a visionary, in more ways than one. In 1913 he thought he was having psychotic episodes by having dreams and visions of blood-filled rivers, endless winters and mass death. Jung's sense of the power of the collective unconscious comes partly from experiences such as this, for in 1914 the first world war began, and his visions seemed to have a prophetic ring to them.

After the war, Jung took an active interest both in developing his ideas as well as travelling and learning around the world from people in different settings -- this included people in indigenous cultures in Africa, the Americas and India. He was active in the field until the mid-1950s; he died in 1961.

Jung worked with Freudian ideas, but did not adopt Freud's framework without significant modifications (and there were parts he outright rejected). Jung saw the interior structure in a tripartite set-up -- the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is not the superego of Freudian theory, but rather a typse of psychic inheritance, a species-level knowledge that possibly even extends into the future (like his visions).

Another primary development of Jung is the idea of archetypes -- given his literary and linguistic background, this would seem to be a natural for Jung. These are mythical or primordial images -- much of religious literature is full of them; legends exemplify them. Archetypes can be easily understood (such as the mother archetype, the hero archetype) or more obscure (the anima and animus, the mana, the shadow).

This volume of Jung's work is compiled and introduced by none other than Joseph Campbell ('The Power of the Myth'), who worked so closely with the Star Wars group to turn it into a modern legend, full of Jungian-style archetypes. Jung's work spans much of spirituality, psychiatry/psychology, and even gets into political and philosophical territory. Campbell gives a good selection of Jung's works here, intending it to be both an introduction to Jung's psychological theories as well as his love for and realisation of the importance of mythology and religious lore of all people.

The first section has eight essays or selections that deal with particular psychological theory pieces -- the structure of the psyche, the stages of life, psychological types (the precursor of Myers-Briggs and other types of psychological type assessments). The second section deals with more 'spiritual' topics and dream analysis -- the relationship of psychology to poetry, the spiritual problem of the moderns, etc. The third section contains two essays -- On Synchronicity, a lecture he gave dealing with such things as deja vu and coincidence, and his 'Answer to Job', tackling the very tricky subject of the nature of God in the Hebrew scriptures in an interesting manner.

Campbell gives some additional reading suggestions in the appendix, divided by topic. Of course, one might pick up Campbell's own books as well.

I recommend this book to clients interested in learning about Jungian thought. Just the introduction by Joseph Campbell is worth the skimpy price of admission and the depth and breath of Jung's ideas remain as powerful and intriguing today as they were when he first wrote more than 80 years ago. Concepts such as the Self, the collective unconscious, shadow, and introvert-extrovert remain great tools for self-awareness. Because it can be read in sections I often go back to it for reference and I find that every time time I do so I am rewarded with a new, deeper, understanding. Warning! You may have to use more than two neurons to digest this but the effort will be worth it!

This book is simply incredible. The concepts and ideas are incredible and Mr. Jung is a brilliant writer.

It is a different style than Sigmund Freud's writings- it is much softer and gentler without the hard edged and often cruel sounding analyses of Freud.

A MUST HAVE for anyone's personal library.

Before cutting your teeth on the The Portable Jung (which has been culled from Jung's twenty-volume complete works), it would be advisable for the beginner to read, first, a primer--to develop a nodding acquaintance with his anatomy of the Self, and his theories on personality types and the collective unconscious, to say nothing of complexes and even alchemy. By grounding yourself beforehand, you will get much more out of your first reading. Jung's treatise on personality types, alone, can be daunting, since it was conceived after his break with Freud, and Jung found himself not only in a personal crisis but also inundated with content from the collective unconscious. All dedicated students of Jung will eventually read his complete works. But, as Joseph Campbell says in the introduction, reading The Portable Jung from cover to cover will give you firm footing. Jung was to the psyche what Einstein was to the material universe. His discoveries were no less greater than those of Nicolaus Copernicus.