Looking at Carl Jung and Red 252

Yesterday the Philosophy and Psychoanalysis session was centred on Carl Jung and the course leader Scott made clear that his own view of Jung was more limited than his of Freud.

Being self reflective, a critiscm of myself in looking at the history of ideas is that I'm easily drawn to the personal circumstances of the players in a way this is perhaps excusable when looking at  Psychoanalysis.

There are a number of books on Jung

What I had gathered from the preliminary reading ahead of the Monday session was that there had been a painful acrimonious split between the Austrian Jewish Freud and the younger Swizz Gentile Jung - it seemed like a messy divorce where long buried differences were probed and agonized over.

On listening to that (for me) reliable source of background information the BBC Radio's In Our Time I found out far more on the story around the split between the two.

[There's also an extensive interview with Jung on YouTube]

Jung became something of an anointed (by Freud)successor to him as leader of the 'Freudian school of Psychoanalysis - Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud  formed a strong personal and professional relationship. It's said that when they first met (they had communicated ahead of this meeting) they spent 13 hours together without break such was their 'meeting of minds'.

What plays out strongly is the (perhaps) father fixated Jung's disenchantment with what he felt was an overly emphasised take on the importance of the sexual drives within the field.

Since the personal split there has too been a divergence between  the two schools that there names have headed up.  Jung is considered by many as a more optimistic figure and he is often associated with positive outcomes.

Jung too is (in hindsight) viewed as having expressed some views on what is now termed as the  'developing world' that are perhaps  anachronistic in what is now accepted terminology and many critics consider him exhibiting anti Semitic attitudes.

Aside from the personal split though there are differences that give Jung's school a more mystical approach to the human condition with the idea of  the  collective unconsciousness - Jung is also associated with the use of archetypes.

Red 252

Well it's a shop with red connotations..

Eyes left for a bit of 'Red' shopping.