C.G. Jung: Word and Image

by C.G. Jung

Book Overview

The description for this book, C.G. Jung: Word and Image, will be forthcoming.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691018472
• ISBN13: 9780691018478
• Release Date: May 1983
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 9.2" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

"Letters, we've got letters, we've got lots & lots of letters"

This is a huge book shining light on Jung's psychology--both personal & theoretical. I added over 100 quotes from it into my collection--an incredible amount. They address a wide range of topics such as: modern art, telepathy, astrology, fear, schizophrenia, the death penalty, ethics & morality, music, evil, psychological projection, Freud, science & its limits esp. in relation to religion, neologisms (creating new words), doctors vs. scientists, rationality/consciousness vs. non-rationality/unconscious mind, the dangers of groups, ethnic differences, & the nature of analytical psychology. Of special interest, due to the accusations against Jung of anti-semitism, are the several letters sent in his own defense. Based upon the written material herein, these criticisms appear to be unfounded. For example, he wrote: p. 148 "It is my opinion that the peculiarity of the Jews might explain why they are an absolutely essential symbiotic element in our population. If there were no differences between them and other people, there would be nothing to distinguish them at all and then there would also be nothing in the characteristic influence, amply attested by history, which they have exerted on their environment. It must after all be supposed that a people which has kept itself more or less unadulterated for several thousand years and clung onto its belief in being "chosen" is psychologically different in some way from the relatively young Germanic peoples whose culture is scarcely more than a thousand years old" & p. 154 "I am absolutely not an opponent of the Jews even though I am an opponent of Freud's...not because he is a Jew." He also succinctly describes the overarching nature of analytical psychology which, IMHO, differentiates it from forms of therapy in general & from Freudian psychoanalysis in particular: p. 377 "the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous characteristic." Interestingly, despite his obvious erudition, Thinking orientation, & scholarship, he retains his connection to the real world (reminiscent of Buddhist mindfulness meditation & other techniques): p. 479 "Sometimes a tree tells you more than can be read in books." Clever & profound IMHO. Worth 4.5*'s