Freud and Jung as Natural Complements

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Carl Jung (1875–1961) were physicians who created psychologies to address issues of human suffering and, to a lesser degree, of human fulfillment in their patients. They shared the view that making previously unconscious material conscious was central to achieving the stated goals. They also shared the view that the interpretation of dreams is a fundamental tool for access to unconscious processes that are often not observable elsewhere in a person’s life or observable to only a limited degree. The empirical basis for their shared views was their work with the details of their patients’ lives and with aspects of the world’s literature, including myths and fairy tales, sacred writings, anthropology and the works of gifted authors such as Shakespeare or Goethe. Both regarded psychological suffering as rooted in developmental arrest, whether this is understood in an environmental, organic or other sense. The natural complementarity of Freud and Jung begins...