Major Schools of Psychology
Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Hay in Understanding Psychology for Medicine and Nursing, 2019
The collective unconscious refers to humans’ innate tendency to react in a particular way whenever their experiences stimulate a biologically inherited response tendency, e.g., we do not have to learn to fear the dark or snakes through direct experience, because we are naturally predisposed to develop such fears through the inheritance of our ancestors’ fears. Carl Jung suggested that all human beings share certain unconscious ideas which were created from similar evolutionary circumstances and common ancestors. The unconscious that we all share is called the collective unconscious. According to Jung, the collective unconscious is the storehouse of hidden memory traces that were inherited from our ancestral past. It is our minds’ residue of human evolutionary development. Jung theorized that the components that make up the collective unconscious are universal types or propensities that we all share and that have a predominant mythological quality. The physical contents of the collective unconscious pass from one generation to the next as psychic potential. Distant ancestors’ experiences with universal concepts such as God, mother, water, earth, and so forth have been transmitted through the generations, so that people everywhere and at any time have been influenced by their primitive ancestors’ experiences. Therefore, the contents of the collective unconscious are more or less the same for people in all cultures.
Spirituality and midwifery care
Patricia Lindsay, Ian Peate in Introducing the Social Sciences for Midwifery Practice, 2015
In Western scientific and secular thinking, such was the stranglehold of Descartes’ ideas that it was not until the advent of psychoanalysis in the early twentieth century that the role of the spirit in wellbeing was established. Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, proposed that the mind was made up of conscious and unconscious thoughts, both of which could influence physical wellbeing. The unconscious mind consists of a personal unconscious (the thoughts and actions an individual has forgotten or deliberately repressed) and a collective unconscious in which everyone shares and that has existed since the genesis of the human race (Jung, 1968). Jung cited the almost universal parallelism of mythological motifs as proof of the collective unconsciousness’ existence. He argued that it crosses space and time and belongs to all people, although they experience it in culturally conditioned ways (Jung, 1968). The collective unconscious is inherited in the shape of thought structures and ‘possibilities of thoughts’, and is encountered in dreams and symbols that Jung noted feature strongly at crucial transitional periods of life such as birth, death or initiation into a new stage of existence. For Jung the dreams and symbols encountered by people at these transformative moments represented attempts by their unconscious minds to make accessible the ways and patterns with which humanity has historically coped with such transitions. To ignore them was to risk an incomplete initiation, and to become alienated from the personal as well as the collective self.
Other Foreign Adventures
Peter Tate, Francesca Frame in Bedside Matters, 2020
Rummaging under the bed, Andrei pulled out a huge leather-bound book which he opened with obvious reverence. Inside were the most beautiful pen and ink drawings of fairies, ballerinas, elves, dashing mounted soldiers and lips, pages of lips. The style was Aubrey Beardsley, but almost more accomplished, and deeper. It was very hard to explain but the images resonated, I have never been quite sure of Jung, but he would have understood. Jung believed we all have innate, universal, pre-conscious psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. These archetypes are components of the collective unconscious, and serve to organise, direct and inform human thought and behaviour. Jung thought that archetypes hold control of the human life cycle; in this little flat in newly freed Russia it was the first and only time I understood what he was getting at.
Indirect work with hypnosis using metaphorical objects through unconscious intelligence in virtualspace
Published in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2022
Robles (2021b) states that, in the Ericksonian vision, our life experiences are learnings and resources that we can use to face any difficulty that life would present to us. The Ericksonian principles that within the problem lies the solution and that the human tendency is to be healthy and find solutions, may be essential for an effective brief therapy and may also be the basis for explaining unconscious intelligence. This positive and constructive force is what Robles refers to as universal wisdom (Robles, 2021c). It is this intelligence that leads us to overcome problems and find solutions, that is, it leads us to resilience. Similarly, Richardson (2016), considers universal resilience a power beyond our usual capabilities. It can also be thought of as the wisdom of the collective unconscious that arises from a universal wisdom shared by all people.
Ericksonian Family Constellation Work with Metaphoric Objects: Discussion and Illustration
Published in International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2020
Robles (2012) stated that in the Ericksonian view, our life experiences are learnings and resources that we can use to deal with any difficulties experienced. The Ericksonian principles are inside the problem is the solution, the tendency of the human being is to be healthy, and finding solutions may be basic to effective brief therapy. This is a positive, constructive force referred to by Robles as universal wisdom (Robles, 2001b). It is closely related to the concept of resilience. Richardson (2016), regards universal resilience as a motivation to connect to a power beyond our usual capacities. It may also be considered as the wisdom of the collective unconscious stemming from a universal wisdom shared by all persons. Robles (2012) also notes that the universal wisdom is similar to the unconscious mind, as it is present in all persons.
Christine Wang: Pioneering Chinese-American Art Therapist
Published in Art Therapy, 2021
If there is one conspicuous absence in Wang’s work, it is in relation to her Chinese identity and culturally-informed approaches. While at Hahnemann University, she hosted psychiatrists from China. At Goucher College, Strouse did not remember culture being addressed in classes, whereas Kolodny saw diversity subtly in Wang’s decision to have faculty who worked in a range of settings. The one reference to Chinese culture occurs in the introduction to her thesis in a review of the anthropological roots of art as healing:In China, to this day, artists and philosophers have been inspired by the mystical conception of the relationship between man and nature. Thus, it was clear that the wellsprings of art were to be found in part in the most archaic forms and symbols that still remain with us. (Wang, 1979, p. 9)This comment seems to relate to Kauffman’s report of Wang’s interest in Jungian psychology with an emphasis on universal struggles that pertain to development and the collective unconscious.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Psychoanalysis
- Unconscious Mind
- Jungian Archetypes
- Wise Old Man
- Shadow
- Personal Unconscious
- Analytical Psychology
- Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Individuation