preview

The Mind Divided Into Three Different Levels

Decent Essays

Always introspective, Jung’s theory was partly elicited in a dream. Jung was on the second floor in a Renaissance Period house ornately furnished in baroque style. He wandered to the first floor, which was detailed in a less ornate, medieval style. Descending further into a stone floored basement, he found a trap door that led to a dusty, dank cave in the very bottom of the house. There he found two bashed in skulls (Baer, 2003, p.177). At the time, Jung enjoyed a working relationship with Freud and asked his interpretation of the dream, but was not satisfied with Freud’s wish fulfillment concept. Instead Jung believed, “the unconscious appeared as something natural, as a natural function that is completely independent from consciousness” (Baer, 2003, p.178). Using his dream as a guide, Jung envisioned the mind divided into three different levels. The conscious is the realm of the ego where reality and awareness reside. In fact, Jung considered ego and consciousness as interchangeable terms (Stevens, 2001, p.62). He depicted the ego as the center of consciousness but part of the bigger Self, or entire personality. Ego develops in early childhood and gains strength during the adult years of establishing oneself before reconciling its lesser role in a process called individuation. In contrast, the personal unconscious holds forgotten or repressed memories and is unique to the individual. Therefore each thought, every experience, and long ago memories are stored within

Get Access