If you have ever classified someone, been classified, or heard someone called introverted or extroverted with regard to personality, know that this happened because of a man named Carl Jung, one of the biggest names in the history of psychology and psychiatry.

Among other ideas that Jung wrote about that definitely changed the directions of the study of the human mind are synchronicities, those coincidences that leave us thinking they are more than coincidences, and the foundation of a type of approach to psychology, analytical psychology. Understand all about who Carl Jung was and what his ideas are in this article we have prepared!

Who was Carl Jung?

Carl Gustav Jung was born in 1875 in Switzerland and died at the age of 85 in 1961 in the same country. He was a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, best known for being the founder of analytical psychology, which we will talk about in the topics below. Without a doubt, he is one of the greatest names in the history of psychology and was responsible for the consolidation of theories such as personalityintroverted/extroverted, of archetypes and the collective unconscious.

His scientific studies of psychology and psychiatry were greatly influenced by his hobbies and interests in spirituality, such as Eastern philosophy, alchemy, astrology, the arts, and the occult. Because of these "less scientific" interests, shall we say, Jung receives some criticism from those who believe that psychology and psychiatry need to follow more scientific lines.orthodox and less open to spirituality.

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Carl Jung maintained a study relationship and friendship with another important name in the history of the study of the human mind: Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. They contacted each other for the first time in 1902 and from that year on exchanged correspondence that lasted 13 years (359 letters sent between 1906 and 1913). Their first meeting, in 1907, was a 13They broke up years later precisely because Freud could not admit the influence that spiritual studies had on Jung's work.

Carl Jung's ideas

Also known as Jungian psychology, analytical psychology is Carl Jung's main creation, an approach to psychology still used today in private practice. This theory takes into consideration concepts such as the psyche, the unconscious, and the process of individuation (the process by which something becomes unique).memories and impulses, as Freud thought, but a collective construction and passed on from generation to generation over the centuries.

Another important concept in his work and thought is the introvert/extrovert personality distinction. Jung developed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a test that helps determine how much introvert/extrovert someone is.Extroverts live with a type of attitude characterized by a concentration of interest in the external object (i.e., focus on the outside world). Despite the distinction, according to him, we all have introverted and extroverted characteristics, but one of them has predominance over the others.

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According to Jung, we are all subject to the influence of something called the collective unconscious, that is, psychologically inherited and reinforced content throughout our lives, such as personality traits, culture, among others. Some of this knowledge is called archetypes, a word of Greek origin used by him to refer to the standard role a figure has in our lives,for example: the mother is the nurturer; the father is the provider, etc.

An example of a construct in which Jung mixes psychiatry and spirituality is the concept of synchronicity, a word he uses to define events that are not related by chance (like a coincidence), but by a meaningful relationship, i.e., something that happens for a reason, not by chance. Another way to refer to this is the experience of events occurring that coincide inin a way that has some meaning beyond mere chance for the people who experienced that "significant coincidence".

Carl Jung's outstanding phrases

"Where love reigns, there is no desire for power; and where power reigns, there is a lack of love. The one is the shadow of the other."

According to Jung, when we focus on feelings like ambition, greed, control, and power, we automatically give up love and all the good that comes with it. Where there is a need for power and control there can be no love, and the reverse is true.

"He who looks outward dreams; he who looks inward awakens."

According to the Swiss psychiatrist, it is only when we turn inward and look at who we truly are that we can understand the person we are building from ourselves and what is possible to do with it. Looking outward allows us to dream, but only looking inward allows us to wake up and seek to make those dreams come true.

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"Some shoes that look good on one person are small for another; there is no one recipe for life that fits all."

Life, according to Jungian theory, is a 100% individual experience, so it is not possible to treat all human beings as if they had the same personality, because each being is an individual and unique construct, so it must be treated as such whenever it is under analysis.

"Errors are, in the end, foundations of truth. If a man does not know what a thing is, it is already an advance of knowledge to know what it is not."

It is from our mistakes that we understand what we should not do and, automatically, what we should do, so mistakes are essential to the human being, because they bring him a knowledge that he will not find in any book, because it can only come from his experiences and the lessons he draws from the mistakes he makes.

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart."

Jung always insisted that most of the answers we need are not in the world, that is, outside, because they are actually found inside, in our heart, or whatever metaphor is used to talk about what is inside, so we must look within ourselves for the answers we need.

"The meeting of two personalities resembles the contact of two chemical substances: if any reaction occurs, both undergo a transformation."

When we come into contact with someone, regardless of what the situation is, this encounter will certainly promote transformations and changes in the two people who have met, that's why he cites chemistry as an example, because these encounters are really like two different substances that come into contact and produce a result from that.

"Dreams are the unfalsified manifestations of unconscious creative activity."

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This prominent scholar of the human mind believed that dreams were the purest manifestation of human creativity and impulses, so he gave a lot of importance to what the dream world had to say; not as an oracle or something capable of predicting the future, but as something that concerns our depth.

"Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but when touching a human soul, just be another human soul."

Arrogance is one of the personality traits that drives people apart the most. No matter how much knowledge we have, whether practical or theoretical, when we come into contact with another person, we must try to be just the same, without distinguishing ourselves by all the knowledge we think we have. He who puts himself above the other is automatically below him.

"That which you resist, persists."

Whenever we ignore something or prevent this situation, feeling, thought, or whatever from flowing naturally, we are actually blocking the spontaneous flow of things and allowing the discomforts to persist. It's like living on the run from something we know is going to happen. The sooner we allow it to happen, the sooner we will be rid of the pain and anxiety.

"Any tree that wants to touch the heavens must have roots so deep as to touch the hells."

It is impossible to achieve great results without first battling hard enough and planning what is necessary to finally reach those achievements. He who wants to reach the heavens needs to plan on the ground, so says Jung. It is no use, therefore, having huge and grandiose dreams, but not planning and battling to achieve them.

How to apply Carl Jung's ideas

If you read the sentences in the previous topic, you noticed that Jung always points to our inner self, to what we are "inside" or our heart, as the best guides we can have. What remains from his teachings, above all, is this idea that we should seek within ourselves what we need, and only then go to the external world.

Another practical point we can point out is that coincidences exist, but has anything ever happened to you that gave you the impression that it was beyond that? A great love, the arrival of an unexpected job opportunity, a helping hand at a key moment... You have probably found yourself facing what Jung calls synchronicity, something that seems coincidental only at first sight, but which carries a meaningLet's be open and vigilant to synchronicities!

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Finally, we can point to another way to take advantage of Jung's teachings: have you been paying attention to your dreams? What have you been dreaming about? When we dream about something, we tend to look for direct associations or signs of something that will help us predict the future, for example, but the truth is that if we get rid of this desire to find predictions in dreams, we can learnA lot about our personality and who we are from what we dream.

So, what do you think about Carl Gustav Jung's ideas? Do you think you can apply any of them in your life? Share with us and with the most important people in your life your opinion about one of the greatest names in the history of psychology and psychiatry!