Carl Gustav lung was born in Kesswil, Switzerland -Ain 1875. His concept of "the collective unconscious" may be said to have cast new light on how the world works, and on how the humans in it live and move. Jung was both a friend and follower of Freud, and from 1907 became a devotee of his psychoanalytical theories and a member of a psychoanalytical society created bv Freud and his followers.

While Freud explained psychological symptoms mainly in terms of repressed infantile sexuality, Jung reached out rather more optimistically, as much forward as backward, into the lives of his clients. Jung eventually rejected Freud's idea that sexual experiences during infancy are the principal cause of neurotic behavior in adults. He believed that Freud overemphasized the role of sexual drive lie developed an alternative theory of the libido, arguing that the will to live was stronger than the sexual drive. Jung also emphasized analysis of current problems, rather than childhood conflicts, in the treatment of adults. In 1912, he resigned from Freud's society and founded his own school of psychology in Zurich.

Jung believed in psychological growth, or "individuation," powered by an innate drive to wholeness. Within this context, neuroses have a positive aim and constructive elements that represent attempts at growth, so it is as vital to elucidate their meaning and lessons as to know their origins.

He considered that at each stage of our lives we progress to deal with different aspects of our development, and that in later years cultural and spiritual needs become paramount.

He classified personalities into two types - introvert and extrovert - and developed a unique theory of the unconscious mind, in which he argued that there were both personal, or individual, and inherited or collected elements.

The overarching goal of Jungian psychology is the reconciliation of the life of the individual with the world of the supra-personal archetypes. Central to this process is the individual's encounter with the unconscious. The human experiences the unconscious through symbols encountered in all aspects of life: in dreams, art, religion, and the symbolic dramas we enact in our relationships and life pursuits. Essential to the encounter with the unconscious, and the reconciliation of the individual's consciousness with this broader world, is learning this symbolic language. Only through attention and openness to this world is the individual able to harmonize their life with these suprapersonal archetypal forces.

Clinical theories

Jung's writings have been of much interest to people of many backgrounds and interests, including theologians, people from the humanities, and mythologists. Jung often seemed to seek to make contributions to various fields, but he was mostly a practicing psychiatrist, involved during his whole career in treating patients. A description of Jung's clinical relevance is to address the core of his work.

Jung started his career working with hospitalized patients with major mental illnesses, most notably schizophrenia. He was interested in the possibilities of an unknown "brain toxin" that could be the cause of schizophrenia. But the majority and the heart of Jung's clinical career was taken up with what we might call today individual psychodynamic psychotherapy, in gross structure very much in the strain of psychoanalytic practice first formed by Freud.