Jung

Somewhere deep within the human mind, lurking between forgotten childhood embarrassments, inexplicable dreams and the nagging suspicion that everybody else has somehow been issued an instruction manual for life, lies the unconscious. And few people were more determined to rummage around in it than Carl Gustav Jung.

In Jung (1982), Anthony Storr takes us on an illuminating journey through the life and ideas of one of psychology’s most fascinating, influential and occasionally bewildering figures. Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who began his career in the intellectual orbit of Sigmund Freud, before deciding that the great man’s obsession with sex was perhaps not the complete explanation for absolutely everything. Freud, unsurprisingly, was not delighted.

Their celebrated falling-out helped Jung establish his own distinctive approach to psychology, involving archetypes, the collective unconscious, introversion, extraversion, psychological types and the rather unsettling possibility that the strange characters appearing in our dreams might have something important to tell us. Whether they are worth listening to before breakfast is another matter entirely.

Jung believed that beneath our conscious personalities lay a vast psychological landscape populated by symbols, inherited patterns and hidden aspects of ourselves. His ideas drew upon mythology, religion, philosophy, alchemy and dreams, producing a body of work that was simultaneously groundbreaking, controversial and sufficiently complicated to ensure that generations of psychology students would never enjoy an entirely peaceful night’s sleep.

Anthony Storr, himself a distinguished psychiatrist and thoughtful interpreter of psychological theory, proves an excellent guide to this extraordinary intellectual territory. Rather than simply treating Jung as an infallible prophet of the unconscious, Storr examines his achievements, contradictions and limitations with an admirably independent eye. Jung emerges as a brilliant, imaginative and sometimes frustrating thinker whose influence extended well beyond the consulting room into literature, art, religion and popular culture.

This is a book for anyone who has ever wondered why people behave as they do, why dreams are so peculiar, or why perfectly sensible individuals occasionally develop an inexplicable fascination with ancient symbols and mysterious coincidences. It may not explain why your neighbour insists on mowing the lawn at seven on a Sunday morning, but it might offer a few interesting theories.

Published by Fontana in 1982, this compact and accessible study provides an engaging introduction to Jung’s life, personality and enduring psychological legacy, without demanding that the reader first undertake several years of analysis or develop a working knowledge of medieval alchemy.

Condition: Good. A previously owned copy with the usual signs of reading, handling and surviving several decades in a world that Jung himself would probably have found psychologically fascinating.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where we believe every book has a past, every reader has an unconscious, and some purchases are undoubtedly motivated by forces we would rather not investigate too closely. At least this one comes with a clearly stated price.

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