Carl Jung’s best books take us into a sphere that goes far beyond simple analysis of human behavior, he was a pioneer of deep psychology and his vast work contains a wonderful alchemy between psychoanalysis, spirituality, religion, philosophy and the dream world. Personalities arouse as much interest as this great psyche analyst.
Jung is said to take just over five minutes to impress anyone. Graham Collier, RAF pilot during WWII and professor of philosophy at the University of Georgia, who had the opportunity to meet the famous Swiss psychoanalyst at the age of 75, was impressed by his playful, almost malevolent gaze and silences respectful, waiting for the response of your interlocutor.
“Unsired life is a disease from which we can die. “Carl Gustav Jung?
Dr. Collier also explains that, for part of his life, Jung experienced a certain sense of rejection on the part of the scientific community after publishing several books on the study of consciousness and deepening concepts that addressed more topics in the spiritual than analytical field. The interest in his theories was so great that the BBC, in order to attract the public, put Jung with a working-class politician who was very critical to both of them to discuss a show called “Face to Face”.
The result of this TV show was simply surprising, Jung’s balance, naturalness, conviction and charm delight delighted everyone and this interview was transformed into an impromptu conference. who forged a lasting friendship with him. In fact, it was he who encouraged Carl Jung to write one of his best-known books:?The man and his symbols ?.
We could probably tell many other stories, such as his endless travels, his complex relationship with Freud or his broad influence on our literature, our film and our culture in general; however, one way to get to know Jung is through his books and this broad heritage where it is worth diving from time to time, navigating his theories, his symbols, his personal reflections and this personality that has undoubtedly forever marked his history of psychology.
Jung’s work is extensive and includes his autobiography, essay books and personal reflections, including the correspondence exchanged between Jung and Freud between 1906 and 1913, where we can deepen our knowledge about the development of the psychoanalytic movement and the relationship between these two personalities. .
In this article about carl Jung’s best books, we seek above all to evoke the most representative works of his work, with which both beginners and Jungians?How much specialists will be delighted with each of their lines, concepts and theories.
Let’s start by explaining the origin of this book. After his interview with the BBC, a well-known politician asked Jung to share his theoretical views with the general public in the simplest and most didactic way possible. He did it, and it was actually the last of Carl Jung’s books, the pousmous work he wrote before his death in 1961.
In this book, the first thing that will draw our attention are its more than 500 illustrations, through which we immerse ourselves fully in the theory of symbolism and the importance that symbols have in our dreams, in art and even in our daily behavior. .
“I’m not what happened to me. Carl Gustav Jung?
A need. This is one of Carl Jung’s best books and one of the most interesting, with one of its most controversial subjects, archetypes.
We are faced with a collection of essays that are immersed, on the one hand, in the collective unconscious as it is, and on the other hand, in the nature of the archetype: this psychic expression of the structures inherited from our fellowmen, which is undoubtedly the cornerstone of much of the work. Jungian.
As we already know, Carl Jung was the founder of the School of Analytical Psychology and this book is undoubtedly the best representation of this approach and, in essence, a reflection of a small part of the history of psychology.
In his pages, Jung will guide us through a much more innovative conception than Freud proposed to us until then about the psyche. His studies and continuous revisions on the subject offer us, for example, a richer view of the unconscious, establishing, for example, the duality between the collective unconscious and his influence on the individual unconscious.
Synchronicity as a principle of acoustic connections (significant coincidences) is a gem that Carl Gustav Jung wrote with Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel Prize in Physics and one of the fathers of quantum mechanics. In this book, we can study one of the most interesting and known Jungian concepts: synchronicity.
Jung raised this idea for the first time at the first meeting “Eranos”, held annually in Ascona, Switzerland, and which subsequently published articles, essays or books with the topics covered in these meetings. It was in the 1950s and the Swiss psychiatrist exposed to his colleagues and the rest of the academic community something controversial and attractive at the same time: what we heard by chance is not a matter of chance, but what did he call synchronicity?
In this book, Jung links synchronicity to another equally important concept in his work: intuition.
It is one of Carl Jung’s books that best represents his work and will serve as a fabulous journey through the world of the unconscious. Although much of the essay is devoted to dreams, is this where we can?Track? Some of our complex and limiting behaviors that we often show in our conscious lives.
Jung tried to interpret dreams not with the same Freudian goal, that is, to identify the classical sexual bonds inherited from childhood, but, on the contrary, he wanted to draw a “map of the present” and the context in which his patients lived to understand why. these emotional behaviors and sufferings.
We are undoubtedly looking at one of Carl Jung’s best books, one of the most essential to understand his legacy.
Some of our readers may be surprised that, in a psychology book, the term “soul” appears. It should be remembered that, in Carl Jung’s work, this idea is very present.
In fact, as Jung himself explained in his autobiography, no doctor could cure his patient if he could not approach first and come into contact with his soul.
This vision already gives us a clue to Jung’s global approach to human beings, and believes that childhood and youth are the most important periods of human life and that we must be very attentive to, so possible conflicts, disabilities and prejudices lived. in the family context of a child and the personality of the parents undoubtedly determine the well-being of the child or the possible psychological problems of tomorrow.
Interestingly, Sigmund Freud’s daughter dedicated her life to this same goal, providing psychological assistance to all children with child trauma, a field that Freud himself neglected and never fully developed.
We have already talked on other occasions about the interesting concept of transfer, an idea that is still very present in the psychoanalytic or psychodynamic current.
It is one of Carl Jung’s most representative books on the subject and where he makes an interesting equivalence between alchemy and transference between the patient and his therapist. As is already known, in the daily practice of psychotherapy, this phenomenon can occur: the person He ends up projecting his emotions and experiences on the professional himself, which undoubtedly hinders the progress of the healing process.
In this book, Jung reintegrates his symbolic figures to explain the dynamics and bond that sometimes develops between the doctor and his patient.
This book consists of six interesting essays. In them we will know perfectly what we mean by “deep psychology”. And that’s Jung’s real cornerstone, first we must remember that, for the Swiss psychiatrist, all psychic phenomena are actually forms of energy.
“The main function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance. “Carl Gustav Jung?
In the first essay, entitled “On the Energy of the Soul”, he offers us an interesting introduction to better understand certain dimensions of our personality, such as extraversion or introversion. Subsequently, general considerations about sleep psychology?And “The essence of the dream “will deepen in the interpretation of sleep, where profane and specialists will be able to better understand their most representative concepts.
In addition, and out of curiosity, this volume ends with the essay “The Psychological Fundamentals of Spiritualism”, in which the author explains, with his usual clarity, objective considerations that Junguiana psychology maintains in this regard that is undoubtedly very interesting.
Carl Gustav Jung did not believe in God, he believed in spirituality and how each of its aspects defines and traces the essence of our cultures and of humanity itself.
“Religions, with all that they are and affirm, are so close to the human soul that it is precisely psychology that can least ignore them. “Carl Gustav Jung?
This book is as personal as it is exciting. It is a perfect reading for a weekend, to understand a little more this vision of analytical psychology that Carl Gustav Jung left us as a fabulous legacy, what we must always take into account is that to understand people from his roots, we cannot neglect the spiritual plane and all the phenomena and traditions that, according to him , constitute the very root of psychic life.
In addition, it must be understood that Carl Jung’s best books, and in particular this one, “Spirituality and Transcendence”, are the reflection of an always open mind, an always receptive and sensitive look that has tried to look a little further to find meaning. in the reality of the human soul.
This book is an anthology, a tour of anthropology, religion, art and spirituality that will leave no one indifferent.
It’s 1957 and Carl Jung is 81. This is the ideal time for a person to undertake a project as cathartic as it is relevant, which is nothing more than writing the story of his life. Jung did so with the help of his colleague and friend Aniela Jaffé, in these pages we will know, for example, what his years of formation were like, what his tense but productive relationship with Freud was like, and how every trip, every conversation, every discovery and experience shaped what he called. the bottom of your soul ?.
It can also be said that the reader will not find a simple book of personal memories or reflections of someone who is already in the fall of his life, in the twilight of his existence. In no way has Jung yet taken the opportunity to establish the pillars of his theories, his conception of the human mind, his vision of the unconscious, the role of symbolism or the principles of psychotherapy.
So we are faced with a book by Carl Jung that will help us better understand his thoughts and his personal work as a psychologist.
We leave at the end of our list of Carl Jung’s best books one of the most important and complex: “The Red Book”, which is so special for several reasons. One of them is that it took more than 15 years to complete or at least until he felt it contained everything he wanted to convey.
Another problem to keep in mind is that your heirs did not want it published, so it was not published until 2009, when we finally managed to have this curious and enigmatic work that fascinates and worries. The red book? Raconte and illustrates Jung’s terrible visions between 1913 and 1916. His goal with this book was to understand these images, to understand the associated symbols.
? The Red Book is not a philosophical, scientific, religious or literary book, it is a work of prophetic and mythical nuances that admits multiple interpretations, requiring multiple approaches to be understood and even appreciated, it is a jewel that deserves to be read after a year. better understanding of all Jung’s work.
“Somewhere, at some point, there was a flower, a stone, a crystal;
a queen, a king, a palace; a loved one and a loved one, long ago, about the
sea, on an island, five thousand years ago?is love, it is the mystical flower of the soul,
it’s the center, is it me? ?
? Fragment of the red book? ?
In conclusion, although there are many other Carl Jung books, essays, articles and books, these 11 suggestions certainly offer us an excellent representation of an indispensable and unforgettable figure who deserves a little of our time. Without a doubt, Jung’s books will be as rewarding as they are exciting.