These behaviour patterns or archetypes, as
Jung called them, helped us quickly and comfortably
size up other people. Even at the movies,
once we've identified someone as an archetypical
hero, we can better predict his behaviour.
When we see a movie like Star Wars, we are
already right there.There is that immediate
connection to the various characters in the movie.
The whole idea of Darth Vader and the whole idea of archetypal evil, and Luke Skywalker
as the young hero... These are mythological
themes. That's what attracts us to go into movies.
In the real world, many of us unconsciously
play out these archetypical roles. The nurturing
mother. The good son. The successful business
person. But often there is a more complex
unique person inside of us that is struggling
to be recognised. Motion people today developed,
I think, a pretty mature sense of how look and act at the right times, and boy, they are quick to
recognise somebody who doesn't. Jung stressed
that in order to be truly happy we must stop trying
to be who we think we should be or who everyone expects us to be, and figure out who we really
are. "I think at one time or another, every
girl wants to be a cheerleader. And if
you are just out for the prestige, if you
don't really care, the other kids spot you as
a phoney right away." For years, Jung himself
had played out archetypical roles. He had
devoted himself to following in Freud's footsteps.
All the while suppressing the inner voice
that was telling him to go his own way. After his many years of soul searching, Carl Jung had
found his true self. Promoting individuality
became a cornerstone of Jung's work. And with
the end of WWI, a new and more open society
emerged that was ready to embrace Jung's
ideas. When he first published his theories
in 1921, the book was an immediate international
best-seller. In psychological types, Jung
offered a system that would help people better
understand different personalities and appreciate
the qualities that make each of them unique.
He coined terms like "introvert" and "extrovert",
and explained how someone who is shy thinks
differently from someone who is outgoing.
Jung called this process of identifying and
labelling different kinds of personalities
"typology". Typology helps an awful lot of
explaining the difference in functioning and
that it's ok to be different, it's ok to function
differently. For the public, finding out what
personality type they were became the rage
and back in Zurich, Jung's workload exploded.
At the age of 47, Carl Jung had become internationally
famous, and patients from around the world
were making appointments up to a year in advance
with Jung. He had more patients than he could
handle. Everybody wanted something from him.
Artists and poets and writers of all sorts
were attracted to him. And if they had creative
blocks or they had issues with alcoholism
or depression or lack of meaning, they would
come to him. But Jung's popularity didn't
come without a share of negative attention.
In the 1930's, the world began marching to
war once again. In a divided Europe, some
of Jung's theories would become increasingly
controversial. He wrote about the differences
between Aryan psychology, Jewish psychology
and Chinese psychology. This was taken as
Jung being anti-semitic but the ones that look, any sensible person will see that there are differences in
psychology between Jews, Aryans and Chinese. Jung felt that if everyone could learn to understand
each other's differences, there would be less
conflict in the world. But ironically, Jung's
theories were adopted by the Nazis who twisted
them to suit their own agenda. Jung sparked
controversy in 1933 when he agreed to take over as Head of an International Society for Psychotherapy.
At the time, most of the group's members worked
in Germany and were facing Nazi domination.
Jung wrote that he wanted to help his German colleagues keep their relatively new
profession alive despite the suppression.
But some viewed Jung's efforts as collaboration.
At the time, Germany was the predominant country
in Europe before WWII. Everything. Science,
philosophy... So Jung felt it was very important
to maintain psychotherapy in Germany if at
all possible. So he worked with the Nazis
from 1933 to 1940, and people have not forgiven
him for doing that. Over the years, Jung vehemently
denied being an anti-semite and supporting the
Nazis but controversy remains. Toward the end
of his life, Jung turned away from treating
individual patients, travelling and lecturing.
A true introvert at heart, he spent increasing
amounts of time at home on lake Zurich surrounded
by his family. When his supporters began urging
Jung to start an institute that would teach
and spread his theories, Jung only reluctantly
agreed. He had an allergy against following.
He didn't want you to follow a guru, he didn't
even want you to follow, you know, Christ.
He didn't want to follow. He wanted you to
become an individual. So he didn't want people
to follow him. But he realised people wanted
to learn and study, you know, his ideas and
his thoughts, and he had no choice. Eventually,
societies bearing Jung's name sprang up from
San Fransisco and Kiev to Singapore and Argentina.
Jung himself spent his final years writing
and enjoying a simple life. He died at his
home in 1961. He was 85 years old. Despite
his wishes, a definite cult of personality
developed around Carl Jung after his death.
With the age of Flower Power and hippies came
a whole new generation that was captivated
by Jung's message which included terms like
"age of Aquarius" and "New Age". The New Age
he meant in the most basic terms after the
end of the Second World War: new ways of thinking,
new possibilities for society. He thought
that politics was evolving. That the relationship
between men and women was evolving. He had
a sense that everything was going to change
and change profoundly. More recently, Jung's
original work with personality types led to
perhaps his most enduring and practical legacy:
the Myers-Briggs test. This tool helps schools
offer career guidance and it enables corporate
America to better match an employee to a specific
job. It took American pragmatism to basically
put his theory into a test, the Myers-Briggs
typology test. And it's the most used test
in United States. Every year, more than a
million people take that test to find out,
you know, "how do I function?". Carl Jung was
ahead of his time in many ways. Today, decades
after his death, his once revolutionary theories
are now part of the fabric of our culture.
Jung has maintained and increased his popularity
because he speaks to the kinds of issues in
terms of meaning, in terms of spirituality
that people are looking for. We are a society
that values the individual more readily than
ever before. And terms like introvert and
extrovert are a part of everyone's vocabulary.
In this way, Carl Jung himself has become
part of our collective unconscious.
