Concept of Collective Unsconscious at Jung

Jung conception of collective unconscious is based on his experiences with schizophrenic persons since he worked in the psychiatric Burgholzli hospital. Though initially Jung followed the Freudian theory of unconscious as the psychic strata formed by repressed wishes, he later developed his own theory on the unconscious to include some new concepts. The most important of them is the archetype.

Archetypes constitute the structure of the collective unconscious - they are psychic innate dispositions to experience and represent basic human behavior and situations. Thus mother-child relationship is governed by the mother archetype. Father-child - by the father archetype. Birth, death, power and failure are controlled by archetypes. The religious and mystique experiences are also governed by archetypes. The most important of all is the Self, which is the archetype of the center of the psychic person, his/her totality or wholeness.

Archetypes manifest themselves through archetypal images (in all the cultures and religious doctrines), dreams and visions. Therefore a great deal of Jungian interest in psyche focuses on dream and symbols interpretation in order to discover the compensation of archetypes as symbols of psyche transformation.

The collective unconscious is a universal datum, that is every human being is endowed with this psychic archetype-layer since his/her birth. We may also describe it as a universal library of human patterns of behavior, or the Sage in man, the very transcendental wisdom that guides mankind. Finally the archetype is God in man.

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