Freud vs. Jung Essay examples

By interpreting a person’s dreams, psychologists can gain insight into the emotions he or she may be feeling. Sigmund Freud was one of the first researchers to publish a book on his knowledge of dreams. Freud believed that dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious” and contain a person’s unconscious desires (“Sigmund Freud”). Nowadays, dreams are interpreted not by their story, but by their emotional color. During sleep, the brain replays emotional experiences from throughout day. Often, dreams offer alternative solutions to these experiences. Many psychologists believe that taking actions in a dream can help a person feel better about a situation. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believes that dreaming is meant to help heal one’s mind by presenting the sleeper with a problem and then offering a way to solve it (“Greater Good”). If a person is feeling guilty, he or she may dream that the situation he or she is to blame for is actually the wrongdoing of someone else. In researcher William G. Domhof’s studies, he concludes that:

The point of view of which Freud interprets and examines the manifest of dreams content to obtain their latent meaning is of a professional psychologist and clinical observer who looked for a way to explain how our minds work and how the individual psychology functions. He based his work on clinical experiences and clinical neurosis of the matter of his own interpretations to be able to confirm his theories as a proven fact. The result Freud gets from the patients he observes and interpretation of their dreams are stereotyped to the complete human condition.

Carl Gustav Jung (a.k.a. C.G. Jung) was born in 1875, in Switzerland, and worked closely with Freud for many years, he learned many things from him in this time. Eventually Jung split from him because his ideas and concepts of psychoanalysis began to differ from those of Freud. Jung was a convectionist, unlike Freud who was a reductionist. Jung saw dreams as a way to come up with solutions to problems you are facing in your waking life. Jung took Freud’s one technique of “free association” and expanded on it. Unlike Freud, he saw this concept as being extremely important. He thought that the dreamer’s thoughts and opinions on what the dream could mean are even more important than anyone else’s, including many times an expert. Dreams, to Freud, are a way of interacting with your unconscious. Carl Jung’s methods to interpreting dreams could be a very important step to help people lead happier and healthier lives. He believed that the manifest content in our dreams is just as important as the latent content when it comes to interpreting our dreams. Freud took a very hands on approach when interpreting people’s dreams, but Jung put forth less information from himself because he thought dream interpretation relied heavily on the dreamer himself. A college student who is experiencing nightmares consistently may visit a psychologist who knows about the meanings of dreams. A psychiatrist who believes more in Freud’s ways may take the dream as being

Both Freud and Jung provided important and interesting theories on dreams; encompassing their functions, their roots, and their meanings. Freud looked at dreams as a result of repressed memories, particularly repressed sexual memories from our childhood. Jung however, believed that dreams delved beyond sexual repression during younger years, to other problems, be it trauma, anxiety etc. Jung also believed dreams changed predominately through middle adult years, while Freud believed the opposite. There is little empirical evidence to reinforce either Freud or Jung’s theories, however, their contributions to the study of dreams in psychology cannot be lessened or denied.

Freud also listed the following results from his studies, dreams can have multiple layers of meaning, nearly all dreams are wish-fulfilling, and all dreams have a unifying motive that accounts for all random images and events. Freud concluded that dreams are the way an individual 's unconscious mind tries to express itself and that dreams “may only have a chance of reaching our consciousness if they are somewhat disguised”. Which explains the sometimes absurd and bizarre dreams that someone can get. Sigmund Freud uses the following analogy to explain his theory, “a political writer may criticize a ruler, but in doing so may endanger himself. The writer therefore has to fear the ruler’s censorship, and in doing so “moderates and distorts the expression of his opinion”. The writer serves to represent the unconscious mind, while the ruler is the conscious mind that stops an individual from doing certain things. Dreams and daydreams are practically synonymous, except dreams occur when an individual sleeps, and daydreams are when the person is awake, but both allow for the mind to wander, so the theory can apply to both, but Freud mainly focuses on the aspects of dreams.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Dover Thrift Editions. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2015.

This reflective essay illustrates Freud’s theory of dream analysis. It will begin with a brief overview of Freudian dream theory and will go on to describe the various components of personality structure and the unconscious from a psychodynamic perspective. This essay will analyse one of my personal dreams using Freud’s dream analysis theory and conclude with a critical reflection on the application of his theory as it relates to my dream.

After a friend told me about some weird dreams he had been having I decided to research the meaning of dreams. I will focus on Sigmund Freud’s idea that understanding our dreams can help us to understand ourselves, and live a much happier and fulfilled life. Freud was known as “the father of psychoanalysis” and in 1899 he wrote his most famous work, The Interpretation of Dreams, and

Dream analysis has undeniable benefits within the realm of therapy, but is by no means restricted to use in therapy. Details in dreams can represent larger ideas in a person’s life, details which can uncover the truth. A person’s dreams are knit very closely with that person’s thoughts, morals, and life. Therefore, dreams speak truth about a person; these truths can be the key that opens closed doors. Vital memories seemingly lost can be re-acquired through dream work which can improve everyday life.

He additionally trusted that the substance of the unconscious are not limited to subdued material. Similar to Freud, Carl Jung trusted that dream analysis took into account a window into the unconscious mind. In any case, different from Freud, Carl Jung did not trust that that the substance of all dreams was fundamentally sexual in nature or that they masked their actual importance. Rather Jung's description of dreams focused more on typical symbolism. He trusted dreams could have a wide range of implications as indicated by the visionary's connection.

Consequently, to study Freud one must investigate his theory of manifest content and latent content. While reading Freud, a student learns that the actual content of the dream is referred to as manifest content. That is to say, the exact subject matter of the dream is the manifest content. At the same time, Freud believed that the latent content was the true meaning of a dream. The latent content appears to be left open to personal interpretations. It was Freud’s belief that dreams come from deep in the unconscious mind. Perhaps even from things suppressed since childhood. Freud studied dreams as a means of psychoanalyzing people and believed dreams were a kind of wish fulfillment. The view Freud took explained dreams as a window into an individual’s unconscious including their deepest desires and anxieties. In 1931 Freud wrote, as quoted in Schön (2016), “The Interpretation of Dreams . . . contains the most valuable of all the dream interpretation in theory discoveries it has been my fortune to make” (76-77). Dr. Freud was proud of his literary contributions to society. In today’s world dreams might be considered a pathway to a person’s true thoughts, actions and

Jung’s beliefs were that there are common elements of human experiences called archetypes. The archetypes are self, the regulating center of the psyche; shadow, opposite of the ego; anima/animus, male and female principles that represent the true self; and persona, how we present to the world (Changing Minds.Org, 2011). He called the psychological make-up of a person the psyche and believed that specific characterizations change over time and across cultures. Jungian therapy stresses the patient's study and acceptance of the archetypes within himself. Only when the first three archetypes are fully integrated can the self begin to be explored and

Another essential point in discussion, was the impact Sigmund Freud had to offer. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, he said "the most valuable of all discoveries it has been my good fortune to make"(pg 106). It was to his believe that dreams are a release of "unacceptable feelings". Since as a child we start to have memories of things that as kids we have lived. For Sigmund Freud this was the manifest content, "the apparent and remembered storyline. Rarely happens, that dreams can be remembered. This only means that the dreams that a person had, was not an important or were not familiar scenes in real life. Occasionally, dreams can however be a symbol, a latent content, "the unconscious drives and wishes that would

Freud believed that dreams represent repressed desires, dears and conflicts. He distinguished two aspects of dreams: the manifest content (Actual event) and the latent content (symbolic meaning of the event). In Freud’s latent content all of the symbolic meanings had a sexual background. He viewed dreams as revealing conflicts in a condensed and intensified form.

In his book, Modern Man In Search Of A Soul, C.G. Jung gives a layperson insight into his ideas on dream analysis. Jung's primary objective in this book is to educate the reader as to what a psychoanalyst does when analyzing a patient's dreams. The principal message in the section of the book centered on dream analysis is that dreams should never stand alone. Dreams are meaningless in a vacuum, but on the other hand when put against a strict set of rules, they are oftentimes misunderstood. The unconscious is a fluid entity and cannot be handled either in isolation or with a static set of guidelines. Dreams are reflections of the unconscious and can represent many different things inside of