Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. His work has been influential not only in psychiatry but also in philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, literature, and religious studies. He was a prolific writer, though many of his works were not published until after his death.

The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.

Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and extraversion and introversion.

Biography

Early years

Childhood family

Carl Gustav Jung was born in Kesswil, in the Swiss canton of Thurgau, on 26 July 1875 as the second and first surviving child of Paul Achilles Jung and Emilie Preiswerk. Emilie was the youngest child of Samuel Preiswerk and his wife. The senior Preiswerk was a wealthy professional man who taught Paul Achilles Jung as his professor of Hebrew. Jung's father was a poor rural pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church; his mother had grown up in a wealthy Swiss family.